MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC: Thompson-Neal, Aldo-Vera | Alvarez vs. Smith | GGG vs. Szeremeta | Ep. 96

Episode Date: December 18, 2020

Friday is finally here and MK has you covered on episode 96, previewing all things combat sports this weekend. Luke and Brian breakdown UFC's fight night card including the welterweight main event, Stephen Thompson vs. Geoff Neal, and the bantamweight showdown between Jose Aldo and Chito Vera. Plus, in the boxing world, the guys talk Canelo Alvarez vs. Callum Smith and GGG vs. Kamil Szeremeta. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Reveille, Reveille, Donks! Look at us now, tip to tip. This is our life. This is our passion. That's the spirit we bring to this show. I'm Luke Thomas. I'm Brian Campbell. This is Morning Combat. Hey, buggery, buggery, Donks. It is time right now yes for morning combat friday

december 18th 2020 what a spectacularly weird year we have had so why not close out this week with a weird episode of mk brian campbell your host on fridays the beige one the bbc all that good stuff cbs sports and beyond have check we'll cash it that's why i'm in la at the moment on the other side of the earth though or of the u.s at the very least from the nation's capital that big old hairy bastard next to me is cbs sports's own a man of many enemies though not mine at the moment he is the great luke thomas and lt you get to just sit back and be the analyst today. You feeling it? You fired up? You ready? Pretty good, yeah. I'm feeling good.

Got some, well, the Triple G fight tonight is kind of dumb, but the Canelo fight should be fun, and the UFC card is very, very good. So very little to complain about. Yeah, we're going to preview all that stuff. Showtime Boxing's return as well this weekend and today's Friday show. Orange background, no J. What else could you want,

right, to start off your weekend that was? Hey, Luke, have you noticed, though, a lot of buzz from that Malka Media produced video of Dylan Danis getting hit with water balloons? It's blowing up everywhere. You see this? You know how upset

Jay is that he wasn't on set to take credit for the orchestration of that and to get and to bask in the glory of all the buzz that has happened for Malka he is probably at home writhing in agony knowing he missed out on a grand opportunity for attention well I'll still in LA Luke at least until this show ends as I was part of the color commentary team of course for Thursday night's NBC Sports Ring City USA Boxing Series, which, by the way, last night was spectacular. Shout out to Charles Conwell in the main event.

I'm thinking, Luke, on my way to the airport, though, I'm going to be looking out just in case Jake Paul comes by with a big brown in a truck, you know, looking to throw things at me. In fact, Luke, I've stocked up on weapons, all right? Just in case, Luke, all right? I've got so many In fact, Luke, I've stocked up on weapons, all right? Just in case, Luke, all right? I've got so many huevos, Luke. I don't even know what to do with them. Hey,

here's the weird one, Luke. Who does I mean, this is breakfast. What is going on here, Luke? Come on. Dude, that's poison. Remember that, who was it? The German scientist who got poisoned by the Kremlin? You're that guy. Jesus Christ. You're that, you're the half-brother of Kim Jong-un who got murdered by the Kremlin. You're that guy. Jesus Christ. You're the half-brother of Kim Jong-un who got murdered in the Malaysian airport by two ladies who claimed they were on a Japanese prank show.

That's who you are. I love it. That's great stuff. Shout-out to me. Shout-out to CBS Sports Showtime, Malka. If you want to try Showtime, and I'm encouraging you to do exactly just that, 30-day free trial, go to Showtime.com right now. Here's what you're getting, folks, all right?

World Championship Boxing, yes. Really great documentaries. Hector Camacho, all that good stuff. But, Luke, good lord, this Comedy Store docu-series on Showtime. I've been making out with that thing all week here in the hotel room in L.A. Gold, brother, gold. You see this yet? Please see this.

I've not seen it yet. I've got it on the list of things to watch, but I've not watched it yet. Yeah, put that to the top of your queue and hop on Showtime or pounce some sand, whatever you've got to do. Luke, your front yard, very sandy these days from those big weight racks. So please show up in Luke's front yard and do some pounding. Also, Luke, we want people wearing our likeness, our namesake. Okay. We want MK all day, nearly every day. And you can wear that too. Store.show.com

is where you need to go. Look, I'm sure you can overnight it for the holidays. All right. Outfit your abuela in something special ahead of this Kwanzaa. Please do that. Luke, you wearing anything right now that says MK? No, not at the moment, but I certainly have a lot of it. Is it weird if I walk around town with a sweatshirt that has my name on it? You know, I wonder that because that's all I do in my town is usually put on the MK sweatshirt off my floor that hasn't been washed in three days and go over to Walmart. You know what I mean?

Like a real donk. And I'm like, is this a great advertisement for the show? Me with, like, stained sweatpants and flip-flops walking around? Probably not, Luke, real donk. And I'm like, is this a great advertisement for the show? Me with like stained sweatpants and flip flops walking around? Probably not, Luke. But I'm proud. I'm proud. I feel like those dudes who stand outside of strip malls and they have the giant like arrow pointing signs that they're flipping and throwing behind their back and shit like

that, you know? I feel like I'm doing that. 40% off. Men's Warehouse. Yeah, yeah. That's great. That's great stuff right there. Do I want to sell you anything else?

No, I think I want to do this show, Luke. Oh, just like and subscribe. Yeah, why don't you like this show? And why don't you subscribe? Because here's the deal. It's three live shows per week. It's Luke's Thursday live chat. Sometimes you get some kind of brosected thing in there,

but you're also getting world-class interviews. I think Luke's interview with Dustin Poirier talking all things things Conor McGregor, has done about 48 million hits up to this point. This week, we got Canelo Alvarez. We got Wonderboy Thompson. We got... That's just the beginning, okay? Go check to see who else we got. Edgar Berlanga. Who was the other guy I got, Luke? I got a lot of guys.

You got Canelo, Stephen Thompson, Berlanga, Lennox Lewis. Oh, yeah. Lennox Lewis. Who else you want? You tell me who you want. You want Jon Jones next? I'll find him. All right, I'll find him. In fact, I'll be the one booty calling Jon Jones on the Albuquerque pullover in the street corner.

All right, enough nonsense for today, Luke. We've got a loaded weekend, and it is time to get into this show. So let's do it on a No J Friday. Saturday, a lot of fights going on. A big one, though, is UFC Fight Night Final, UFC Card of the Year, emanating, of course, from the Apex facility in Las Vegas. This has been a fantastic year for the UFC, and Luke, this Fight Night card, top to bottom, it's sneaky, loaded with a main event you do need to see. Welter Weitz, former title contender, Stephen

Wonderboy Thompson, the aforementioned one, in they're against Jeff Neal. You may remember Jeff Neal, Luke, who looked like the next Leon Edwards and Kamzat Shemaev and all that. Then he just stopped fighting for a long time. This is a comeback for both after about a year off. And if you really look at the big picture, a win could really catapult either one close or right directly into that top five, Luke. How fired up are you for all things, wonder boy Jeff Neal? Yeah, this is a fantastic fight.

It wasn't supposed to be the main event, as we know, but as far as replacements go, you'd be hard-pressed to complain that this is a bad main event. It's actually quite interesting. Welterweight class, I feel like there's a lot of divisions undergoing turnover where there's a newer generation of fighters trying to push out some of the older ones that's a little bit more conspicuous in certain divisions than other ones

but this is a perfect example of it Jeff Neal is a guy who's on the come up who's not been in the UFC nearly as long and frankly hasn't done nearly as much up to this point as Wonderboy has but you wonder if this is a a passing of the torch I want to give credit to Richard Mann from Fightmetric. He puts out a newsletter. It's a free one. You don't have to pay for it on Substack. And he does previews of main events for the UFC typically early in the week so you can sort of get ready for it. And he had an interesting point.

He basically said if you look at the knockdown rate that Wonderboy suffered in his first six fights versus his last nine, there's been a substantial increase. Now, if you look at where Wonderboy stands among fighters who get knocked down the most, he's still in some elite company, but he is different from all those other fighters, because in every other case where his number is listed and ranked, he is around fighters with a very high volume style. That's actually not what he has. And in fact, if you look at his numbers in his last nine fights, he gets hit less and he has better defense overall. So what I'm saying, like, why is he getting dropped? Well, at age 37, it doesn't take as much to sit him down as it used to. And Jeff Neal can absolutely thump.

On the other hand, BC, you know this as well as I do, as good as Jeff Neal has looked, and he ran through Mike Perry like a freight train, he has never faced or defeated somebody either the style of Wonderboy Thompson or frankly of the stature that he holds in that welterweight division. There is a lot to like about this. I believe it's five rounds. I'm very much looking forward to this and you know jeff neal fucking almost died in the hospital with sepsis he's back ready to go this is a good one this is a really good one uh so much at stake clash of styles that you like and you know we laid out neil he's been out for a year but he's won all five of his ufc fights won the dana white

contender series opportunity before that wins over balal mu Muhammad, Nico Price, and Mike Perry, as you mentioned right there. This is a big breakout opportunity for him, while just the same, a big chance for Wonderboy to remind us that he didn't really go anywhere. Luke, I talked to Wonderboy this week on MK. I had no idea the injuries he had sustained, getting dropped on his head by Chris Weidman during some bro-in-law friendly sparring, and then breaking both hands over the past year. He also hasn't fought since late last year.

So he's got a lot of questions to answer. He's 37. At some point, you know, he's going to slow here. He's on a bit of a bad skid, although he only faces the best. But Wonderboy's resume, Luke, I don't know if we talk about this enough. Sneaky great, bro. I mean, even his recent wins mixed in with the big losses, and the big losses was, you know, he was beating Anthony Pettis for

every second and then got knocked out. He lost to Darren Till in a fight that I scored for Wonder Boy, and then the other loss was the title loss to Tyron Woodley, which was really close. So it's not like this guy's getting knocked around or looking bad, yet his two most recent wins, they hold up great. He's only got to beat Vicente Luque during this stretch, and he beat the bags off of Masvidal before the big turnaround. And that's not even accounting the win over Roy McDonald, the knockout of Robert Whitaker. This guy's been the class for a long time, Luke. He believes the win gets him into the top five and maybe one away from a potential title shot. Do you think there's a final chapter to what the Wonderboy has done?

Because I don't think we give him enough credit. He was that close to winning the title at UFC 205 against Tyron Woodley. Yes, the rematch was much maligned, but can he reinvent himself for one more run given that Usman's the Covingtons and company above him? I don't know. I mean, getting the title at this point to me seems,

you know, pipe dream is a strong word, but very, very, very unlikely, right? You're dealing with people who, in the case of Woodley, he could wrestle, but he had to do it. I mean, Woodley's gas tank has always meant that he has to fight in spots, right? He can't just go full bore. Well, guys like Covington and Usman not only are just as good of wrestlers as Tyron, maybe better in MMA anyway, but on top of that, they don't ever have to hit the brakes. They can just go, go, go, go, go, go, go. And so that relentless pressure, you just imagine over time, it's going to be very hard to break that unless you can match that kind of wrestling intensity. Now, maybe from a gas tank perspective, he could do that. And the resiliency he showed in the first fight with Woodley, I

thought was pretty incredible as well. But we are now several years past that. Look at how much Woodley has fallen off since then. So this fight to me for against Neil, very winnable. If he does more than just honorable, pretty impressive to be that competitive at that age, this late in his career. But at the same time, that is beating Jeffal as difficult as that may be that's one thing but that's not even nearly as difficult I think as beating the very top dogs currently in that division so one one step at a time BC yeah and there has been some criticism and you mentioned that this wasn't the the chosen main event to begin with there's been some criticism that Wonderboy coming off a win would sort of go back in the rankings and fight a Jeff Neal.

But all things considered, looking to find anyone to fill these slots, this is a damn good fight, one that matters, one where both fighters have a lot of questions to answer. And I don't know if Jeff Neal is that good, but that little stretch of wins that we mentioned, Luke, he just looked like a man in there against boys. He looked like somebody that's looking to bust out. I don't want to see him working a day job anymore. I want to see him being a full-time welterweight contender. So we'll see what happens in this fight.

Love this fight though. And Luke, that's just the beginning of almost a pay-per-view card. I mean, this main card is six fights. Five of them, I badly need to see, Luke. What are you feeling about this co-main event? Bantamweights, Jose Aldo looking to snap a losing skid that's added up here against a red-hot Marlon Vera fresh off the Sugar Sean O'Malley surprising stoppage win. Are you crushing your bills? Defeating your monthly payments? Sounds like you're at the top of your financial game. Rise to it with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card. Defeating your monthly payments. Sounds like you're at the top of your financial game.

Rise to it with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card. The credit card that rewards your good financial habits. Earn points for paying your credit card bill in full and on time every month. Level up from bill payer to reward slayer. Terms and conditions apply. This is an interesting one. I mean, Aldo is at the possibility here where he could be three fights deep into bantamweight. Terms and conditions apply. It did not go well. Now, in the case of the opening fight he had against Marlon Marais, you're talking about a guy who was the champion in the weight class, so you lose to him, it's one thing.

Then you fought for the actual title in the title bout. Okay, that's another thing. But here, if you lost to Vera, you'd be talking about somebody who may eventually become championship caliber, but to this point has not been competing on that level. That would mark to me the signal or to be the signal for something new, a level of, you know,

decline, partly just, you know, the division moving on without him. He was never really much a part of it, but I just mean the, you know, this division is getting deeper and deeper and tougher and tougher by the

day. You know, did you come down to one 35 too late? And when you did, what were you really at all capable of doing? Marlon Vera is going to be a great test. And it's funny, you know, if you down to 135 too late and when you did what were you really at all capable of doing Marlon Vera is going to be a great test and it's funny you know if you look at the odds BC Aldo is a favorite but ever so slightly I mean I don't the reality from the yawn and the Marais fights is you could argue that he won the Marais fight obviously you could not argue at all that

he would have deserved to win the yawn fight He got stopped with strikes. But the point being is there were many rounds where he looked pretty good. I have to say, I wonder about his age at this point. I wonder about the miles on this one. Like that beating he took in the Jan fight, it wasn't so bad until the end, and then it just kept going. Rabbit punches, right? Yeah, it was a late stoppage from Leon Roberts there. So this will be an interesting one. If he can beat

Chito Vera, to me, it's like, dude, you're right back there. You can maybe still make something happen in this division. You lose to Marlon, it's not that Marlon's not a quality opponent, but it'd be something like that Olivera Ferguson win, where somebody is now taking the slot of very, very top of that division against somebody who well while Aldo never held it exactly at 135 you know been competing against title contenders and title holders essentially for the short duration there it'd be a bit of a switch

and it'd be a huge moment in the Ecuadorians career if you could get it done yeah it's it's crazy it's not crazy but it's how we do it here in this game of journalism and stuff. We paint these big, broad narratives on each fight to sort of give it meaning, Luke. And we were just one fight removed from the 34-year-old Aldo, excuse me, you know, being on the verge of winning a title in the second division and us writing those stories of how do we recalibrate his legacy if he beats Peter Jan? Does he suddenly go up to the upper table? Well, then he loses in a gutsy performance, but it's another beating on top of the two vicious ones he took against Holloway

a few years back for the title. And now you're like, he's lost three in a row and five of seven. Is he going to be a high price cut moving forward for UFC and end up in Bellator? I mean, we're actually in that discussion mode, even though I think Aldo does have plenty of life left if they want to match him in some fun old guy fights. And Bantamweight has a lot of names, you know, from that you can you can match him with. But I want to see here if he can, if Vera's for real as he's looked and, you know, my

colleagues, Luke and yours too at CBS Sports, Brandon Wise and those guys, they're like, look, I'm going to give Marlon Vera a fighter of the year vote if he wins this. I know he lost to Song Yedong to open the year, but that was a very close decision that could have gone either way. Then he beats the brakes off of Sean O'Malley. He goes in there against a legend of Jose Aldo. This has been a hell of a year for Marlon Vera. I think at the very least, though, Luke, this fight certainly offers fireworks. I mean, this version of Aldo is going to go down swinging.

This ain't the guy who's going to gas out in round five as there's an alien growing out of Mark Hominick's forehead. This old guy, Jose Aldo, comes to bang. So does Vera have the firepower to stand up to him? Or are we going to see Jose dip back into whatever's left and pour it out, similarly to when we were going to count him out in the Jeremy Stevens fight or the Moikano fight, and he came out guns blazing, Luke? Yeah, there's certainly that as well. Also, remember, there are still some people who think

maybe Vera got a little lucky against O'Malley. Maybe if that fight had gone a little bit different, you'd throw a couple of different kicks that had not landed on the side of the leg on O'Malley in the way that they did that caused the nerve damage maybe you get pieced up by O'Malley right there's still some of that out there and I don't think that altogether that's the craziest opinion in the world it's a little bit dismissive it's it's unfair but it's not it's not you know if you fought O'Malley 10 times how many of those times do you win and do you win them all like that you know I don't think you win them all like that you might win some other ones but not like like that. So this is a

real question that Vera gets to answer against a guy like Aldo, who, yes, he does have some miles on him. Okay, fair enough. He's not the same guy he was in his prime at 145, but he is still a very tough customer. I mean, Marais barely beat him and Jan took a long time to get to the point where he was. If Vera can do something like that in 15 minutes, some of those skepticism that is lingering since the O'Malley fight, it might go away. So this is a great, great... Dude, this card, you know what it is? The fights are great, yes, in part because of the style matchup and the stakes,

but the matchmakers, you know, not every card they make is necessarily one that speaks to their ability. This one does. This is great matchmaking. The styles are right. The moments in time for their respective fighters and their careers are right. The stakes are right. You really, really have to like a lot of these contests. Well, you know what I like a lot, Luke this welterweight fight which follows it you want to talk about great matchmaking

uh circus clown turned possible serious welterweight michelle pedeta going in there against a red freaking hot violent chaos williams luke uh this is one of those take a bunch of colors throw it at the wall and call it art as it's dripping down I love this shit Luke it's going to be wild it's going to be high-paced it's probably going to be violent I really want to see if if I've been wrong on Michelle Podeta watching him do back flips off the side of the cage and gas himself out dancing on the way in he looks so good in his last fight sort of finally putting it all together but the way chaos williams has been flatlining folks uh he's gonna have to be dialed

in and ready meaning potato this is a great fight you've come a long way on michelle perera haven't you you've really turned in from from foe to friend to maybe now fluffer you've gone you've gone pretty far, BC. Well, I tried to get him on MK this week, and I had a time slot secured, Luke. Then a translator fell out, and my Portuguese was limited to just swears, and I didn't want to call him anything derogatory. You should have just started the interview and been like, ooh, my mohair, ooh.

Hey, Luke, are you going to get off with your high and mighty pronunciation William & Mary education calling him Pereira right now, though? I don't know if I appreciate that. Isn't it Pereira or some shit like that? Yeah, come on. Respect South America, okay? Please. I'll do my best, BC. All right. Luke, how for real is

Chaos Williams? You're a close follower of this game. People love this guy. His name may be, you know, hidden a bit by the breakout years we've seen from the likes of Hamzat Chemaev and Kevin Holland. In a different year, Luke, I feel like we'd be celebrating him a little bit more here entering this fight. Yeah, I mean, he's certainly right now sitting at, what, 10-1? He ran through Abdul Razak El-Hassan in his last contest. He's beaten some other good fighters as well. And he has gone to decision. In fact, I think his last fight prior to going

to the UFC against Jeremy Holloway was one of those. So, you know, he's got some well-rounded ability, but so far what he's shown in UFC is this ability for quick, powerful, explosive wins with his punching power, right? So that's sort of what he has shown. What I'm looking to see is against a credentialed opponent, and Michel Pereira is sort of that, not exactly. What can you do over the long haul, especially for a guy as physical as Pereira can be, right? He's very big, very strong, extremely athletic.

You know, what kind of a disciplined game plan can you put together? Not the entire time, but when you need it. Let's say a disciplined attack when you need it to get the job done. This will be an interesting test. I mean, I mostly feel like they put these two together because they feel like either of them needed a fight and it'd be fun. And reading too much more into it is not the point. Still, you might be able to learn something depending on how it goes. Here's a fight no one's talking about. Bantamweights, Marlon Marais, Rob Font.

Love it, Luke. It's just buried on this card. I mean, look, we've seen some in and out fight nights, right? They fit in between the pay-per-views. Some loaded and fun. Some are just, we're paying the bills and collecting the checks. is this a case of the matchmakers owing so many people one more fight to the end of the year so they're just loading them up here could be some people might have had covid couldn't get ready it's hard to say but dude rob font i mean here are his only losses in ufc john lineker who he went the distance with pedro muñoz he got submitted by him but okay that was back in 2017 and then he lost the decision to half file sunset right he went the distance he Rafael Sonsa, right?

He went the distance. He's only got one loss via a stoppage. Meanwhile, he's got wins over Matt Schnell, Sergio Pettis, Thomas Almeida, Ricky Simone. Dude, Rob Font is excellent. He trains with the Calvin Cater's team, the Tyson Chartier guys up there in New England. He can box. He's got a good jab, good range management. Marlon, Marlon to me I mean here's another crossroads fight right it's a guy like Rob Font who's kind of always been knocking on that door of like real elites at Bantamweight and just couldn't quite cross it

and now you got a case where Marlon has definitely been that guy still probably is that guy but you feel like after the consecutive losses or I should say the loss to Sanhagen, and what was the other one he had? I forgot. But the point being is you kind of feel like people... Jan, right? Peotre Jan for the damn title. No, who did he... No, no, that was Cruz. That was Cruz, yeah. Yeah, hang on. I'll tell you. I got the internet in front of me, Luke. I do have the internet.

It was... Hold on, I'll tell you. Marlon has consecutive losses too. Well, not consecutive, but he had the loss to Henry. He got through Aldo by the skin of his teeth, and then he lost to Sandhagen pretty badly. You kind of feel like maybe the guy's been figured out at this point. And Rob Font fights a disciplined game plan. He understands what he's good at. He's tall, rangy.

That's a tough fight for either guy here, man. This is what I'm saying. The matchmaking on this one is just really outstanding and look morice has plenty of reason to just let let his hands go here i mean you don't want to find how deep this division is at the moment you do not want to fall behind so to speak and be uh suddenly on the prelim cards look because there's just so many names above you i mean friggin dillashaw's coming back, okay, bro? This thing's loaded right now, all right? Luke, this main card opener is always going to be interesting because it's Greg Hardy, the heavyweight who's on a two-fight win streak,

trying to make this project work here. Marcin Tybura in front of him, whatever. It's a decent fight. But do you get down at all with the Media Day comments coming out of Greg Hardy this week where he says a transition to boxing is imminent and he predicts a knockout of Tyson Fury, Deontay Wilder. I'm not even I'm not even I'm not even going to

play this game. And Anthony Joshua. Look this ain't the Paul brothers here bro you got to entertain this. Come on. No I don't and I'm not I'm not even going to answer the question BC. It's a silly question and you know it is. If you want to talk about the fight that he has which he is a decent chance he'll lose uh i'll talk about that but i'm not okay luke all right you i can't do it dude i can't do this the problem mma media gets out there and i saw junkie wrote it up maybe other places wrote it up too and these are fine sites i mean you can't even blame the sites because the way in which sites make money now and this is what they have to do they don't make money off of selling ads and that supports everything uh the way that it used to where ad selling was actually distinct from the actual work itself like classifieds the two have become essentially merged and so the better

your content does in terms of what kinds of clicks you can get and the more advertising you can sell directly to that page the better you will do so it has forced this erosion of standards where you can say something absolutely fucking insane like i banged santa claus's mom and i have it on video you can put that out there and they will just repeat it because it's really really good for their bottom line and by the way when i say good i don't mean like they're greedy i mean like they need that kind of content all year long in order to fucking survive that's just the reality of it but that does not mean i have any other editorial obligation because they amplified it to dignify it here in the case of the paul brothers well one of them actually has an event coming up with

mayweather okay that's a little bit different there's something a little bit more to that but in this shit he's just saying things and i have to dignify it now no i do not no i do not wow you're like mother effer throw me on a bed full of firearms all right all right luke i guess so um jesus yeah bc you really what i mean it's not like i'm bringing up d devlin again you know you're gonna get us fired you're gonna get us fired please don't get us fired all right all right luke uh so yeah no shortage of storylines also in that prelim main event anthony pettis You're going to get us fired. Please don't get us fired. All right, Luke. So, yeah, no shortage of storylines. Also, in that prelim main event, Anthony Pettis back against Alex Morono.

Luke, I saw Pettis come out and say, I need to be a better manager of my career. He says he was drunk as shit when he accepted the Tony Ferguson fight on last-minute notice and really hasn't been a great steward of his career Luke do you think we'll look back on uh Anthony Pettis all things considered as a disappointing run from the the top of the mountain of the Wheaties box and what's happened since yeah I mean or just that the Wheaties box promotion came too late I mean I it wasn't like dude finding the guy or the lady that you're going to get behind as a sponsor in MMA, it's hard to do, man. You know, like they did it

for Brian Ortega, and then he goes in there and just gets demolished by Max Holloway. But he's not done, you know? He took all that time off and he came back and he gave Korean Zombie a nice beating. So it's like, it's just hard to know, which is why like doing it for the best heavyweight ever, who also, by the way, had a loss during his run with Modelo. But still, that's a little bit of a safer bet. Or Amanda Nunes, who is basically the safest bet in MMA right now. Like that's what you have to do. It's just hard. So it's like, you know, did Wheaties absolutely mistime it? I mean, about that, there can be no doubt. Do I blame them necessarily? Like, if you don't know much about MMA,

you're looking for what appears to be the next big thing based on what everyone's probably... And by the way, what's the UFC telling them? I mean, here's the thing. I don't know exactly what the genesis of that deal is, but I've had enough conversations with sponsors when I was running a website to know that a lot of them

want sort of UFC sign off on whether or not it's okay to work with this partner or that partner like my hunch is that the UFC had a little bit of a hand in saying you know steer your attention to this direction versus that one so it's like do I really blame them I don't really blame them dude. Luke unless you grew up in the 80s i guess you won't understand what being on the wheaties box cover meant even though people still have been on the wheaties box cover all the way through anthony pettis and beyond do you remember specifically any boxes you went out of your way to buy like i bought the larry bird one when he retired i bought the dream team one

i remember mary lou retton and sugar ray uh leonard being all over wheaties boxes when i was uh you know very small. Even though Wheaties is really a gross and bland cereal, I don't know how it's remained popular. Did you go out of your way to buy the Caitlyn Jenner box? No, I didn't. Because let me just say, Wheaties sucks ass. It's a shitty cereal. It doesn't hold up well in milk it needs a lot of help with either fruits or you know uh maybe

some kind of sweetener or whatever the fuck Wheaties sucks balls it is a very very awful cereal and so can you throw some some dried fruit in there please Wheaties give me something all right I know like raisin bran is not good for you like the two scoops of raisins but at least you got two scoops of raisins wheaties was like yo you know that mud that's caked on your shoe from walking around outside two days after it snows that's gonna be your wheaties after five seconds of sitting in milk man fuck wheaties so no uh we didn't we were not a pro wheaties household yeah there goes our sponsorship here on Morning Combat. All right, Luke, let's transition to some UFC news that came out this week. Your friend Dana White was talking to BT Sport,

and he said this about Rose Namajunas, your former women's strawweight champion. What I'm hearing is Rose does not want a title shot, White said. Rose does not want to fight for a title. He went on to say that essentially he's hearing from Rose's camp that she's just not feeling it, Luke. And we're talking about a Weili Zhang fight, which I think, look, if you're looking at 2021, that's among the best freaking fights you can make in this entire sport. I need to see it. Only here's the problem, Luke.

Team Nama Yunus is like, bro, what the hell are you talking about? They subsequently came out in an interview directly after, and you had Pat Berry, Nama Yunus' coach and fiance saying, this is absolutely not true. We absolutely want the title fight. Who would turn down a title fight? We just don't want to air this out publicly. If there was some confusion, they can call us to clear it up now here's the maybe a kicker in this luke part of that bt sport interview dana said now that nama unis doesn't want it we're probably going to target former champion carlo esparza luke are you connecting the dots and getting the feeling like this is dana thinking let's get weili zhang a softer comeback fight that we can promote big in China against a former champion, and then we'll do the Rose 1 down the line? I mean,

I'm trying to get inside the mind of a madman here. Right. To be fair, we would just be speculating no matter what. But insofar as speculation is concerned, and we're putting that caveat out in front, I don't think that's a bad theory at all, BC. I really don't. Because, first of all, Dana was like, oh, Robert Whitaker doesn't want a title shot. And Robert Whitaker was like, I literally never said that. Like, I didn't even say anything,

even approximating that. And Rose's camp, it wasn't like they hesitated or came out later and was like, yeah, we don't really want to get into it. They immediately challenged it. They were like, no, that is really not at all true. You guys know how it goes. It's like, oh, we offered you X fight at Y location with Z opponent.

And whatever reason you turned it down, which was you don't want to travel or you're not going to be ready by then, or you thought that opponent was beneath you, whatever. Or maybe you got low balled, Luke. This is a smart method if you're looking to low ball a fighter. Right. Again, the money wasn't right. Whatever the case, if you say no dana will

turn around and say oh they didn't want they they uh they didn't want this opportunity they didn't want to reach for this glory it wasn't in them right now that's how they'll frame it versus well no we just didn't like the terms of the deal not that there weren't parts of it we couldn't necessarily get behind now in fairness to the UFC, yes. I mean, obviously the only fight to make at this point is it with Rose. But if you are trying to mature the Chinese market PC, to your point, and that fight against Ioannina Jacek was an absolute, I mean, you know, not just good, but the damage they did.

Jesus Christ. They went out there and clubbed each other for 25 minutes, giving her a bit of a soft re-entry. Dude, that's what they would do in boxing. Like, I'm not even necessarily all that mad at it, to be honest with you. I don't know that I want MMA copying all of boxing's practices, whether they're best practices or not. But if that's your theory, and I think it's a decent one, could you be all that mad at him for it you know you don't have to throw rose under the bus to get there and i don't support that i don't think it's the craziest thing to want to give jang wiley a little bit of a softer reintroduction

it's the same thing i always say about these about promoters in general in both combat sports it's like if you're gonna lie please do it really well so i'll accept it but if not just tell me the damn truth like just straight up tell me the truth of what you're doing and then it's easier to accept now look full disclosure we're speculating maybe Dana got wrong information whatever although we have seen this practice before out of him that's why we're saying this but I think it's potentially dangerous when we're talking about an athlete like Rose Luke if this is just Dana playing the public headlines fake news game, only because if you heard, and I want to ask your immediate reaction when you saw this headline, if you hear that about Rose knowing she's had, you know, mental health challenges in the past

and has been very motivated or very unmotivated at various points in her journey to get the best out of her and, you know, coming off of this Andrade rematch where she had to walk through hell in that round three, I was already starting to build the narrative of, you know, I think that reminded her how much she loves fighting and what she can do. And she needed that blah, blah, blah. Yet when you hear a headline of, you know, Rose might not be looking that direction. My first thought is, oh, crap. You know, is she ever going to put it on the tracks and figure out how great she can be

for a sustained period? That's why with someone like her, if this is fake news, to put it on the tracks and figure out how great she can be for a sustained period? That's why with someone like her, if this is fake news, I think it's damaging fake news. Yeah, I how damaging it is, is an open question. I tend to think that it's a good question, dude. I really I don't know the answer to that. How damaging is it? That's there's an open debate to be had about that one. I'd have to think about it more. I think it would be case by case. it's a good question dude i really i don't know the answer to that how damaging is it that's um there's an open debate to be had about that one i'd have to think about it more i think it would

be case by case sometimes it can be very damaging sometimes it just never sticks so where is this one in that continuum hard to say um and if she gets back out there and fights again or ends up getting the title shot then probably all this is for naught but yeah that's a good question dude i honestly i i candidly don't know the i wonder what you think about it because I don't know. I think, I mean, look, am I being extra sensitive because Rose has been open and been through some things? And maybe am I being extra sensitive because she's a female? I don't know. I'd have to examine myself on the chair, but I just think it's potentially dangerous to somebody who you know has had some highs and lows if if this is false and fake news but a lot of speculation here it's part of the

promotional game let's roll on and move forward but before we do luke do you love that fight anywhere as much as i do wayley zhong rose nama unis i think it is spectacular of a style matchup and i think rose is trouble for the champ i really do. I mean, is it the best fight you could make in women's MMA? Damn right it is. Right? Probably. I mean, you could make a case for Kayla and Amanda Nunes being a potential on that list. I don't think that's crazy.

But, like, as a surefire top of the food chain, one of the best women's fights you could make right now, that's the one. I mean, I struggle to honestly think of one that would be better than that one, at least on paper, ahead of time. Valentina Amanda 3 may be the only one. Okay, but the first one wasn't boring, but it was short, and the second one was boring.

Well, it depends if you have a palate for high-level skills, Luke, and technique. I don't know. Is that what it is? Is that what it is? You got to have your real deep thinker. I call it Brazilian's Pereira. Yeah.

Either way, you could put that on the list, I suppose, certainly for anticipated fights. But in terms of just on paper how good it would be, shit, dude, I struggle to think of one better. Yeah, I am currently rock hard with emotion, like Jake Hager thinking about this fight, Luke. I have a phoner. You're a disgusting, disgusting man. All right, all right, Luke. Yeah.

Hey, you know what we got this weekend, Luke? We got a big boxing match. The Zone back in the ring. They got two cards, back-to-back nights. Let's focus on the Saturday one, Alamo Dome in San Antonio. And it's big news because it's the return of your pound-for-pound king, a global icon, Canelo Alvarez, 30 years old, back for the first time, Luke, in over one year,

and back on big stakes because it's a short-term turnaround. It's a dangerous opponent in Callum Smith. And given everything Canelo's been through, getting his promotional and network free agency when we thought he was probably headed to a long-term court battle with DAZN and Golden Boy, this has just been a wild turn of events. Not only did he get free,

but he went back to the team he just divorced at DAZN who couldn't pay him the guaranteed money and sat down at the negotiation table and got a really good deal and said, when I talked to him this week on Morning Combat, that it was the biggest and best deal available for right now. So he took it on a one-off. We can talk about that, but we've already been up and down those roads. It's time to talk about the damn fight. Luke, you saw these two stand next to each other, seven inches taller from unbeaten Callum Smith from England,

the youngest of the fighting Smith brothers, all four of them either world champions or world title contenders. Callum might be the best of the four. Is he good enough, though, to make this a real damn freaking fight on Saturday? Yeah, I mean, listen, it was like that scene where, was it Game of Death? I think that's the movie. I could be getting it wrong, so please don't dead wrong me, but where Bruce Lee is standing next to Kareem

Abdul-Jabbar, like, dude, they look like not just two different weight classes, I mean, two different species. Jesus Christ. He's got like an 8-inch reach advantage and a 7-inch height advantage, which is astronomical in boxing. It's a huge jump, and yet

Canelo is favored somewhat considerably to win. So I was thinking about this fight, like, do I think it'll be an interesting test? I absolutely do. Partly, I think Canelo can take portions of fights off, especially a little bit later. I think he's stronger in the first six rounds than he is in the last six. Again, not always, not every time, but as a general rule, I would stand by that. Obviously, you're going to see the jab be a big component, but I also feel like Canelo's going to have a real, eventually, not an easy time, but he's going to be very effective at corralling and sort of smothering, I think, Smith at times. And I'm also expecting big body work. Like one of

Canelo's best punches is that left hook to the liver. He's got good setups on it. He's got a good ability to slip and roll. And I think you're going to see him getting inside that distance and just absolutely crushing him. And then and only then, when he can slow him down, corral him and bring his hands down a little bit, do I really think you're going to see him open up upstairs. And at that point, you know, we're talking about one of the best power punchers, even up to 175 pounds. So should be interesting. It is a test for Canelo, but as well as I do, BC, even if it's close, the judges are just going to give him the nod anyway. So as long as it's not close, it gives a shit.

I mean, I asked Calum Smith about that because you have to ask a Canelo opponent in the modern era. And by the way, I don't say this to take away from Canelo. He's my pound for pound king. I've gone on record so many times in saying this is his era, right? Floyd and Manny handed it off to him. He's been a tremendous draw as a pay-per-view king.

He pretty much always takes on the toughest challenge available. And let's be honest, he's the pound for pound number one because he carries his power up weight classes. He can outbox weight classes he can out box you he can walk you down and get you out of there but with all those compliments said luke every single close fight trout laura danny jacobs both glovkin fights canelo has received the benefit of the doubt getting either a draw in the in the case of the first triple g fight or a close

decision win and obviously we always point to even the floyd mayweather fight cj ross every every single person had 12 nothing or 11 to 1 pretty much for floyd cj ross gave canelo six freaking rounds so i did ask callum say look dude do you have to finish this guy and you know he know, he gave a very, I mean, he gave a response, Luke, that I don't want to hear, but I get it. He's like, I would say yes if I was somebody else. If I was watching somebody else fight Canelo, I would say yes, you need a knockout. But he goes, I believe in my craft. I believe that the statement I'm going to make in the ring is going to be good enough and the judges are going to believe it.

Sorry, Callum Smith, without a couple knockdowns, I mean, you're just not going to do that. So let's talk realistically. And I think the realistic path, if you're going to be a Callum Smith backer for a big upset, is can you get him out of there? He's a good puncher, Callum Smith, Luke, not a great puncher. But I think he's way tougher than a Rocky Fielding who Canelo walked through and folded off. You know what that was. I mean, I was going to say, oh, by the way, Callum Smith also knocked out Rocky Fielding quicker and before Canelo ever did. He knocked him out in one round. But I think Callum Smith has potential because of the size

difference and the fact that he's never lost. He's young, hungry, decently athletic, has, like I said, decent power. He's going to be a tough out. Canelo's going to have to work for a while to get inside. You want a comparison? Look at Canelo against Sergey Kovalev, right? Beautiful knockout late, but until we got there, Kovalev was boxing with his longer range from distance and really having a pretty good time at it, keeping Canelo away until Canelo figured out how to get inside and get to his chin. I feel like this fight may end up playing out that same way. And I think if you're Callum Smith and you don't think that at some form, at some point, I've got to gain respect. I've got to draw a line in front of me. I've got to make Canelo pay if he comes forward. I think you have to be thinking, I need a knockout, Luke, because not only has

history told you, you can't get a win by decision over Canelo, but if he doesn't do all the things I just said, if he doesn't land significant right hands early to make Canelo not come forward and get inside on him, the jab's not going to be effective. He's not going to have a chance

anyway. So if I'm team Callum here, Luke, the odds are against me. I might look at this as I got to get him into a bit of a brawl. I mean, look, but I got to do it from the outside. I've got to be active and aggressive. I cannot box this man. I have to treat him like the smaller fighter. Will that strategy get him knocked out if he employed it, Luke? Or are you just going to try to finish and hope you get the score? you're not going to get the scorecards yeah I don't brawl at all no you're going to get knocked the fuck out brawling uh-uh I wouldn't do that to be candid

with you I think I think you just have to sort of see if you can get it done working behind the jab but you know here's the thing not so much backing up I think you have to pressure Canelo a little bit so brawling no pressuring yes I do think you have to pressure Canelo a little bit so brawling no pressuring yes I do think you have to do that because if you're sitting behind the jab but he's walking you down and then he lands even one to your two right I don't mean the punch as in jab and cross but I mean he'll eat uh two shots to land his one just the optics of it you know especially if it's a smaller guy they're gonna going to make that count more. So no, you need to be, you need to be a bit of a bully in there behind that jab. So we'll see if he can do it. The question for you BC is not what do you think is next if he wins?

Cause I know triple G has a fight coming up. We'll talk about that in just a second. Forget all that for just a moment. Let's imagine a world where he wins. What fight do you want to see next? Not what you think boxing wants to see, not what you think is important for boxing, not what the promoters can make. Forget all that. You are king of boxing for a day, the day of, let's say this coming Sunday, and you get to decide what is next for Canelo Alvarez following a victory. What is your Christmas list number one sitting on Santa Claus's lap go-to well I'll tell you what it's certainly not Archer better be for anybody at light heavyweight I think he can compete at

light heavyweight as a smaller guy with a big punch like he did against Kovalev if he needs to but I don't see that as realistic also Luke I don't think he wants to make 160 anymore you know I talked to him on morning combat this week he said my 2021 plans are to stay at 68 and unify titles so the whole idea of what could be next for him i think it's more likely a pbc turn rather than i mean like he's going to entertain offers from the zone he people want him to fight triple g a third time danny jacobs still around but i don't think that's anything that expands his brand or his legacy or his legend there are some fun assass names under the PBC banner at 168 that either have titles or have had.

Luke, a Caleb Plant fight that was almost made for this December because Canelo wanted it. That's a big pay-per-view, I believe. I mean, Caleb Plant can box. He's marketable. I kind of really like that fight, Luke. That's a style I kind of want to see against him, somebody who's quicker than him who can box.

And I want to see him against David Benavidez, who had the WBC title, got stripped of it when he missed the weight on the scales for that Showtime fight we saw, Luke. And now that title is actually not only put vacant, but Canelo will be competing for it along with Callum Smith's full WBA title. So what do I want, Luke? I want him to go to PBC. I want him to fight Caleb

Plant and David Benavidez in 2021. And I want to start kind of banging the drum for Canelo versus Jamal Charlo. You hate me for that? No, I like, I'll give you my wishlist and you're going to say I'm crazy. This is just what I want to see. I'm not asking anybody to agree or find wisdom in it. Just tell you like what I would love to see. Baturbiev versus Canelo would be my number one for all the reasons you said you would not want to see it. That's why I do want to see it. Right after that, Charlo is the one that I have my eye on.

I'm okay with a third Triple G fight if that's where they end up going. I don't think that's any kind of scandal at all. It'd be fine. Caleb Plant, I could take it or leave it. You're the world's biggest Caleb Plant fan I've ever seen in my life. I don't find that fight particularly interesting Maybe competitive, but not that interesting To me, it's like

Big Caleb Plant fans, yes I'm not saying he has the same style as Danny Jacobs But you'd get the same satisfaction That you got out of Canelo vs. Danny Jacobs Which is to say, not that much It was a close-ass fight, Luke I scored it a draw live, alright? I understand, it was close Two of the judges had it, 115-113, Luke. I scored it a draw live, all right? I understand. It was close.

And I think two of the judges had it 115-113. It was very, very close. But in the end, was that like a thrilling contest? Like, fuck no, it wasn't thrilling. So I'm not there on that one. So my top three would be Baterbiev, Charlo. The Benavidez one is interesting. I like that as well.

And then Triple G. All right. All right. I love that. And by the way, I think the Kellum Smith odds and the general feeling, Luke, like he's got a chance, but Canelo should beat him, comes off the fact that Callum Smith's last fight, a title defense against Great Britain's John Ryder, he looked flat. He got a disputed decision.

A lot of people thought Ryder outworked him. So it's a lot of what have you done for me lately. You know, this wasn't the same Callum Smith that walked through George Groves or Hassan Endam a couple years back. Also, he took it on short notice too. Yeah, but he had stayed in the gym knowing something big could happen. So kudos to him for that. His brother, Liam Beefy Smith, got sent to hell by Canelo four years ago

via body shot. Rocky Fielding got folded in half. And, Luke, ultimately my prediction is Canelo gets to that body. I think it's going to take, though, into rounds 10, 11 to do it. And I think he stops Calum Smith just the same. Canelo always going big, though. Big fan of Big Red. So shout out to that ginger.

All right, Luke. Let's keep the train moving. Thursday night, the night before, on DAZN. No, Friday. Friday. I'm sorry. Friday night. Thursday was last night, Luke. Yeah, on DAZN. Friday, Friday. I'm sorry. Friday night. Thursday was last night, Luke.

Yeah. All right. Hey, tonight, Luke, tonight. Hard rock Seminole in Florida. It is Gennady Golovkin putting his WB. No, IBO, IBF. Yeah, the IBO is BS. The IBF middleweight championship on the line against a Polish mandatory contender, Kamil Zarev.

Sharameta. Sharameta, yeah. Scaramouche, Scaramouche, can you do the Fandango? So, Luke, here's the deal. No one wants this fight. Scaramouche is unbeaten, but he has no knockout power. And this is one of those circumstances where you look at his record and you go, how the hell did he ever get ranked number one by an alphabet body?

He hasn't beaten anybody. And here's why I... So, given the pandemic, I don't hate this fight. Because for all these boxers, they're just trying to get back in there. Given him fighting one night before Canelo, could they be setting up a time schedule for a trilogy? I don't hate it for that reason either. And I have to believe, you know,

DAZN is hoping there's a chance that can happen, even though, Luke, I don't know if you heard rumors that Triple G Jaime Munguia could be next if Golovkin wins on Friday. I know that would get your panties all kinds of drippity drop there, but here was my point, though. Remember when I never said he was a better power puncher than Deontay Wilder, but people don't have listening comprehension skills

and thought that I did? We can't prove that anymore because Joe Rogan took your show off YouTube and it's gone forever. He didn't take mine. He took everyone from that week. Glenn Greenwald has gone too. It's on Spotify. The whole thing is there. Don't be a ho. He heard your co-host talk about his height and he's like F this guy. Alright, Luke, so back to this.

This guy, Triple G, here's the deal. Look, nobody wanted a trilogy against Canelo more than Triple G. They hate each other. They always go back and forth. The root of their beef is that when Canelo had the tainted beef and they had to postpone their 2018 rematch because

of his failed drug test. Triple G went off saying, I knew he was a drug cheater. I've seen the injection marks on his body up close, blah, blah, blah. Canelo, he don't like that. But here's the problem with Triple G. 2019, as Canelo told me this week on MK, he was actually trying to make that fight. In fact, do you remember they came out and said, you know, for fall of 2020, right now, we're going to see that trilogy. You know what happened, Luke? Triple G said,

only if I can fight this guy's Shredma first scrap metal, because I promised I would. We don't want your freaking promises, Triple G, okay? I love you, Gennady Golovkin. I'm hoping you run through this guy, even though you had a very tough test last time out against Sergei Derevyanchenko in a fight of the year candidate the last time we saw Triple G there. But Luke, this fight sucks. This fight sucks. This fight blows.

I thought Derevyanchenko beat him. I did not think he beat Charlo. I thought Charlo won, not handily, but it was clear that he won by the end. But I thought Derevyanchenko beat him. I know that's debatable. It's not so clear that you can't argue the other way. Fair enough.

But we were just talking about this with the Zhang Wai Li and Esparza fight, now for different reasons. But the Derevyanchenko fight was tough, but this is the point, BC, is that Triple G's 38. I mean, he looked to be on the... Do you see him on the scales?

My man looks shredded. Shredded, yes. Super good shape. So I'm not saying he's not prepared in terms of what he can do to get ready. I'm certain that he is. But I got to tell you, he's getting an easy opponent here,

whatever, mandatory, blah, blah, blah. But the point being is, he's getting an easy opponent here, whatever, mandatory, blah, blah, blah, but the point being is, he's probably going to knock this guy the fuck out, and he's probably going to knock him out early, you know, within six, let's say, that's just going to do wonders for setting up a Canelo rematch, on the other hand, or I should say trilogy, on the other hand, BC, if he looks like ass here against the guy that the better version of himself, you know, let's say five years ago, I mean, he would annihilate this fucking guy so if he doesn't do that here then his hopes of getting the trilogy are out the window and you're talking about maybe canelo charlo canelo benavidez canelo caleb plant or caleb truax or billy joe saunders or whatever the fuck so this is a big fight for

triple g not what it means for his legacy but what it means for a big payday a final big chapter down the line look let me read you the quote uh and you can hear this of course on the interview i did with canelo alvarez this week but i asked canelo like bro we know you hate triple g yet he's fighting the night before you it feels like you're setting up a trilogy like what do you think about this Canelo says quote that's strange that he had to wait for Canelo to announce for him to do that it has to be difficult to shadow Canelo very difficult for him we had serious conversations in 2019 but unfortunately because of the pandemic the trilogy fight didn't happen end quote uh first of all I love Canelo using third person there and uh

that canelo talked about canelo like that when he was talking to brian campbell but uh uh that's a nice way because canelo really doesn't say anything bad about anybody that's about it is as as dark yellow piss you're going to get out of canelo out talking about somebody so i respect game on that regard um but you know as, we talk about Triple G's age. One of the rare things you can say negatively about Canelo, and I've said it before, I'll say it again, he waited Triple G out two years. You're damn right he freaking waited him out.

Then they had two all-action classics. Canelo was lucky to get out of both without a loss. And now I think he feels like, yeah, whatever, I don't care. If we're going to see a third one, Luke, let's just do it next. Because let's not wait until Triple G has another fight in which he's diminished and gets into a brawl and shouldn't be in one, blah, blah, blah. If he's going to get in a brawl and empty out what's left, Luke, do it against Canelo, not against Derevyanchenko.

Do you know what I'm saying? Yes, agreed. Yeah, I mean, listen, there's plenty of reasons for optimism for a third one. You're right. Talking about himself in the third person like he's to you know doing his whole bit that is kind of amazing um but i don't know you know let's just see what happens tonight i'll be on cbs sports hq after it's over while you're on a bird going on flyover country and then we'll have something to say about it on uh monday absolutely uh busy weekend and also on this busy weekend saturday night showtime boxing back luke special edition a triple header from the mohegan dome there in uh

covid friendly uh connecticut there so luke it's a new main event. Originally, this was Nonito Donair, the Filipino legend, challenging Nordin Ubali for his 118-pound title. That fight fell off when Ubali got COVID. Ubali was made the champion in recess, and the title was put on the line, but then Nonito Donair also pulled out for COVID. So, Luke, Donair's second opponent second opponent Emmanuel Rodriguez will hold this main event he's a former world champion at 118 pounds and he's gonna fight for that interim WBC bantamweight title against many Pacquiao protege Raymarc Gabio here's what's interesting Gabio 24 years old Luke 23 and 0 with 20

ko's but has not stepped up to this level yet. I want to see what the kid can do here because Rodriguez is experienced. His only loss was against the great monster, Naioa Inoue, in 2019. He's got a split decision, went over Jason Maloney before that. He can box. He's tough. I want to see what Caballo has. I'm very understudied on him because he's kind of come out of nowhere, but he's being given the opportunity of a lifetime there. All too true but i gotta tell you dude for me not to sell you short on this one but i for i'll just be honest about it all of my attention is on geron ennis uh boots as they

call him uh he to me what would you say b? Maybe not boxing's best prospect, but in the running for it, in the conversation somewhere along there? He's tough, and he's also dynamic in the ring. Super dynamic. I mean, he also has this style where it's not continuous. He reminds me of Adesanya a bit, where he'll take his time, he'll read, he's moving, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and he'll throw, time, he'll read, he's moving, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And he'll throw, and everything he throws is dangerous because it is so well calculated, so well timed. And he's also pretty athletic, obviously, on top of it. And then he'll take his time back, switch angles, and go through it again. He's not out there, you know, like Derevyanchenko, who's just in your face, grinding on you all the time. It's quite the opposite. It's much more take my time with it and then find it he's got flair for the dramatic he's young he's interesting i don't know how far he's going to take what he's got but what he has at least on tape we talk about all the time on this show bc some fighters jump off the screen whether it's kickboxing boxing or mma this dude

jumps off the screen he has a big opportunity in front of him. And I am very curious to see what he can do with it. Yeah. So Boots Ennis has, every time he stepped up in class, he's looked even better. And that's a true testament to how good he really is, Luke, that the more you challenge him, the better he gets. This is his toughest test to date in terms of a guy with experience in Chris Van Eerden. He's 28-2-1 with 12 knockouts. You probably know him. His last major loss came against Errol Spence Jr. by knockout in 2015, but Van Aerden's won five straight since then.

And, Luke, you may remember this South African boxer because he was the guy who gave Conor McGregor the sparring rounds before Paulie Malignaggi did. So everybody was interviewing Van Airden. How did Conor look? Is he legit? Blah, blah, blah. Van Airden's a tough out, meaning he's durable.

He can box a little bit. He's a tough southpaw there. I'm interested, as you are, to really see what Boots has here. Because if he destroys Van Airden at the level he's been able to blow through other guys and look great doing it, we're going to start having different conversations. so i know you just basically said this is the people's main event you don't care about them bantamweights i care about both also not a bad opener here for last minute changes one of gary russell's brothers gary antonio russell i think is just going by antonio these days just to to put it out there every single one of gary russell's brother has the

first name gary just like George Foreman's sons. But Antonio Russell will face former world champion Juan Carlos Payano, who had that really strong performance on the undercard of the Charlo Bros a couple months back. So that's a 10-round fight to kick it off. Showtime. Keeping the chains moving here. Luke, look, you got to do what you got to do, right? People are going to fall out due to COVID.

In fact, Luke, you and I, we're probably three bad COVID tests from our colleagues away from calling this fight this weekend. So stay ready, Luke. You know what? Stay in the gymnasium, which is where I'm going to go after this show. I'm going to go back to the gymnasium, get work off these COVID LBs.

Which means I'll be in my front yard if any homeless folk are ready. No, no, I'm actually going to the gym, Jim. But it's too cold. Luke, so I would think you're smarter than that because you are, you know, Dr. Luke Fauci is very safe in these uncertain times. Well, I'm so glad you brought that up, BC, because it turns out that the DC government has released data, which anyone can look at it, is now public, trying to figure out where people are getting COVID. Do you know how many people who get COVID in this city get it from the gym?

Did you look at the data? Because I looked at the data. Did you see what it showed? Luke, you can tell your data to shut the hell up. Less than 1% get it from the gym. And the reason why. Oh, look at this. Right wing Luke Thomas is here.

I love this. It's not right wing. It's science. The idea is people are like, oh, you're in favor of lockdowns. No, I'm in favor of lockdowns if you pay the businesses to stay locked down. That's what I'm in favor of. In the case of the gym, although there is one stupid rule here. You can't have gym classes, which I don't quite understand because you have a mask on the whole time.

They make you wear a mask at all times. The gym is limited to 21 people at any given time. And you have to wipe down your equipment before and after you use it. They actually give you stuff to do that with. You have to do it. So you have to temperature check. You have to sign in. You have to sign out. So every time I've gone, I've only been a handful of times, there's literally three people in the entire gym, and everyone has a mask on. It's actually the best time to go to the gym, and the data is pretty clear under those conditions bc under those conditions your chances of getting covet are extremely low so that is an educated risk worth

taking you irresponsible bastard oh fuck you it's so responsible bitch i don't want to hear it fuck you go eat those eggs go eat those eggs cool hand luke i hope that homeless guy blows in your face as you're trying to get the rack up in the front yard and and then makes out with you and passes you the vid all right don't you find that good news if you keep a mask on at the fucking gym i don't know how much wiping all the shit down does because that seems to me like hygiene theater but at a bare minimum you know and then by the way all the all the gyms had to replace their ventilation systems to catch the uh the filters that can kill the virus when it goes through. So there's also that on top of it.

But dude, don't you find that encouraging that the gyms, less than 1% of cases are contributing to COVID? People should be celebrating that. I just wanted to end, Luke, please. I mean, the longer we have COVID, the more these are in my life luke i can't do this anymore okay please all right okay okay fair enough fair enough all right hey uh luke you know you may find out in the end that you were dead wrong for uh working out in a gym during covid but it wouldn't be the only l's you take this week luke here's everyone's favorite segment, and your least one. It's called Dead Wrong.

I don't mind it if they get it, if they're right and I'm wrong. What I mind is the poor research that has shown itself time to time. Actually, Luke, you're going to love this one because they're mostly all at me for my sloppy ass. Luke, when mentioning Australian croc hero Steve Irwin, the crocodile hunter, and mentioning his tragic death a few years back, I did give the death count a plus one for a croc for eating him. Luke, it turns out all of our Down Under fans and the lovers of Steve Irwin and his legacy came at me hard, and they said,

bro, put some respect on that dead man's name. He got killed by a stingray. He got stung in the chest or some shit, right? And then they took him to the hospital, and he died there. I'm dead wrong, and Steve Irwin's dead. And that's where it's at, Luke. I'm sorry. I loved him too, okay?

I'm sorry. But I'm dead wrong. It was a stingray, not a croc. Luke, is his daughter Bindi Irwin sneaky at all, or are we just moving on? Is she a teenager? Because if so, I'm not even going to come close to answering that question. I don't know that shit. Come on, come on.

All right, all right. Luke, also dead wrong this week. You and I, after I impromptu asked you who you believe are the best female practitioners of wrestling inside the UFC cage. Oh, yes, we did get this one wrong yep we both left off the uh long time strawweight contender but hasn't fought in seemingly a decade tatiana suarez who yes is a badass is a great wrestler the problem is luke i just want to see her in the cage against somebody with a pulse like i can't take it anymore luke yes that is true we fucked that up

people were hitting me up on twitter like how could you forget i follow her on instagram i've interviewed her a number of times she's nice she's personable but bc you know this as well as i do she's been absent ever since that win over the uh who's the partner of amanda nunez um nina ansara nina ansarov after the the and it was a close fight against Nina Ansarov where she re-aggravated existing injuries that she had previously had. She has not fought. And so I'll be honest.

The viewers are right. We are wrong. I completely forgot that she was, not that she was good, but that she was part of the roster, for crying out loud. It just completely slipped my mind. So it's a good correction. See, that's a good correction. Oh, wow. Okay. All right, Lukeke that's a man with integrity all right uh luke also i've taken another l this week i was dead wrong when talking about tony ferguson's incomparable ability to heal

mentioning that nasty knee injury he suffered in the fox studio trying to hype up ufc 223 in 2018 i said he returned in four months in a fight that I don't even still think he should have taken. But, Luke, it was six months when he came back. It was Cowboy Cerrone he fought, correct, when he came back? Or was it Pettis? It was one of the two. When Tony came back after his big-ass time off, it was Pettis. Okay, so the whole point of that was I argued that he was taking a massive chance for risking a Habib fight that he had already secured multiple times.

But, Luke, he came back in short form. It wasn't four months. It was six months. I was dead wrong, but just the same. The guy's a maniac. And, Luke, I know you saw that video he put out. He was kind of doing his own dissected in that video luke what were your thoughts what does it make tony crazy or does it make him seem like he knows what he's talking about here's the thing it's like dude if what you enjoy about tony is his sort of stream

of consciousness bravado right then why are you going to take it literally when he's on the other end of a of a fight which is to say he's out there winning and he does this bravado stuff everybody loves it well he's still doing that just from the losing side of things. Do I take a lot of issue with the claim that he had Charles Oliveira broken after one round? Yeah. I mean, that obviously is not a defensible situation, but at the same time, it's kind of Tony being Tony. And I do think, I said this to you on Wednesday's show, BC, if you kind of look at the tape, don't get me wrong. Oliveira was in total positional command on the ground in all three rounds.

And 11.40 of the fight, of a 15-minute fight, was spent on the ground. So that's a lot of domination. But in terms of how close Oliveira got to a sub, or even any real ground and pound, in the second and especially the third round, it fell off a cliff. So he was positionally way outgunned, no doubt about it. But he actually did a pretty good job of keeping himself safe

from the worst parts of the ground elements of Oliveira's attacks. And I do think that should also be noted. It should, but he was basically painting like a moral victory in those videos. Like, look, don't you see in round three, I was preventing him from doing this and that. You were also preventing yourself from winning. So I don't get the, I'm going to pound my chest

and you lost a one-sided fight. And okay, you won this little battle within it, but you still lost the damn fight and you weren't coming on. So, you know, you're not going to come on. I mean, but dude, here's the thing. And this is the problem with all fighters. And you know this in boxing too. The delusion that compels them and moves them to greatness, because part of it is delusion.

Yes, it's a belief in self. But often before you have a reason to be that self-confident, that's the thing that moves them forward. It's a hard thing to reconcile when things start to go bad. Whether you want to call it the end or not, it's just not a good moment in his career. Two losses in a row. Wrestling with something that you have used as an engine for success, that's a hard thing to let go of. So, you know, is the claims he's making all that

defensible we'll know but I'm not really going to beat him up over it just just yet all right I almost accidentally uh did a nice uh impersonation there remember that guy from the UFC early days the Canadian Harold Howard who would fight in a wife beater and he had that great sound bite where he had the glasses on he He's like, I'm Harold Howard from Canada, and we got a saying where I'm from. If you're going to come on, then come on. Yeah, that's the slogan of this show, Luke, okay? If you're going to come on, come on.

Could you turn in your two weeks after the show? I think they're just going to yank me right off, Luke. They're just going to walk in the hotel room, remove the microphone. Wow. All right, one more dead wrong, Luke. It's another L for me. Look, nobody loves the Kimbo Slice, Sean Gannon,

warehouse fight more than I do, Luke. I remember watching that shit right after I got posted to YouTube. I feel like I was watching fight porn, basically. Sean Gannon, an ex-Boston cop, had a Golden Gloves background, had a martial arts background, and he fought Kimbo Slice at Peak Backyard Kimbo for big time money. The dead wrong in this case, though, Luke, was the location. We don't have the viewer who wrote this in, but they sent in a letter here saying,

the beige one said that Kimbo versus Gannon was in some underground location in miami it was actually at santos bjj and mma in providence rhode island disappointed in bbbc only one state away from him very true luke did not realize i could have seen that fight in person luke how um do you remember the first time you saw that? It was like stunning that A, Kimbo Slice could lose because he was building this impressive run, but B, dude, Sean Gannon won that fight, but Gannon's face afterwards looked like a car ran over it. That was some brutal shit. They were exhausted as balls brawling for like 25 minutes.

So I actually know some of the guys who were there because I briefly, briefly worked at what was, it was MMA.TV at the time at MixedMartialArts.com and some of the guys

who I think still run that site but certainly did at the time, one or two of them were there and they told me that Gannon was never the same after that

as a person. Like his mind never quite got right after that fight and you can well imagine dude that was jesus man as far as street fights go um they don't come much more brutal than that you know i mean i mean they do come more brutal right when people get stomped on but what i mean is between two what would you say kimbo sean gannon well matched right well matched oh yeah oh yeah and then the

big southpaw he had he had all kinds of experience in different categories what i mean to say is he could take a shot he could he was you know good enough to like fire a few back and kimbo was beating the shit out of him until kimbo just gassed and uh sean gannon then eventually just put it on him but everyone told me that gannon was he never really recovered from that his face was hamburger uh he got he'd actually it lifted him to a ufc opportunity luke uh then he got double fucked up by what was his name uh brandon lee hinkle brandon lee hinkle beat the bags off of him gannon had some really weird tattoos on his shoulders and he never fought again and the person

who sent this in uh is you know relaying some of the facts from this, Luke, that Gannon is still in a legal battle today with the Boston Police Department because they wanted to fire him when that fight lingered out. Luke, I always thought that Elite XC, UFC, and even Bellator dropped the ball and never getting these two in the cage with the given storyline here. You agree with me? Yeah, I do agree with you. That would have been a huge, I mean, the rematch would have been enormous.

But you know what? Kimbo, I mean, Kimbo had some L's along the way. Kimbo had some W's, bro. Let's not forget that. Kimbo had some, you know, beating the fuck out of Ray Mercer at Cage Fury was a big one. Especially after Ray Mercer had already knocked out Tim sylvia oh fucking lord do you remember that day remember the day when you were like because it was supposed to be an mma fight and then it was supposed to have all these rules and they had to change them all last minute and they had to go

from like a cage to a ring or whatever the fuck it was whatever the changes were there's a million changes and then tim sylvia comes out like a giraffe just born and ray mercer's like look man i'm old as fuck but i still throw them hammers and knocked him out with one fucking shot and it was all she wrote you were like oh god tim we've been telling the whole world that you were a good mma fighter what the fuck are you doing yeah that was great that was great that was really really bad uh i do remember though uh getting stupidly excited for kimbo ray mercer it was in what new jersey it was on like a grainy pay-per-view and uh it was modified rules mma but you know shout out to kimbo he he took him right down and made quick work of that with the choke but i think also dude

um would he would kimbo fought tank on that was what, Showtime he fought him on, I think? It may have been CBS, one of the two. It was huge ratings regardless. Freaking huge, Luke. Kimbo had some Ws, bro. I mean, dude, how unlikely is it for a guy who was like a strip club bodyguard or porn star bodyguard, whatever, to then have the backyard thing and then be somehow allowed on CBS in primetime and do like five, six million viewers, Luke.

Like, he did stupid numbers. Like, dude, you could have put Prime Anderson Silva on national television back then. Who would have done more? Kimbo was like a, it was a phenomenon. And even at the end of his run, bro, even against Shamrock and dada 5000 he was pulling three million people on what was it still spike at the time i mean three or paramount

whatever the fuck he was pulling three million people like dude they were doing ratings up until recently like you know 300 000 or shit, maybe even less at times. I mean, you just can't overstate people loved Kimbo Slice. People were very attached to what he was. So I worked at ESPN for 12 years, and when a celebrity would come to campus, which was like every other day, right, there'd be a monster celebrity there, and you can always gauge how much this person had crossed over by the the buzz around campus right you know like for example the the most buzz i've ever seen and we've seen every famous person come through there was the freaking guy with the abs from the jersey shore

when the situation came it was like lines out the cafeteria door for women to see him but the second biggest buzz i've ever seen and this is including like snoop dogg will ferrell i mean everyone's come to espn dude when kimbo slice came to espn for mma live back in like 2010 or whatever the the amount of people that wanted pictures the buzz was absurd and here's really the greatest legacy to kimbo the person every single person had a story about him being the nicest guy ever despite being so intimidating and every fighter you talk to, Luke, who have been with him on The Ultimate Fighter or knew him or whatever,

they say the same damn thing, like, salt of the earth, great person. So shout out to Kimbo for that, regardless. Yeah, man. I did never hung out with Kimbo, but I interviewed him probably a handful of times. And you always got the sense that all he really wanted to do was just chill.

I mean, if he had to throw hands to make money, hey, it was go time. But I met his daughter. I met his wife. Let me explain something to you. If you saw Kimbo Slice's daughter and his wife at the grocery store, you would think they're the most ordinary Americans. Nothing stood out about them in terms of being, you know, because Kimbo was this outrageous, larger-than-life personality.

Dude, his family was and i say this as a compliment the most normal down-to-earth people ever ever his daughter could not i don't know how old she is now but she was uh she was i think a preteen at the time so let's say 10 or 11 or something sweet very friendly his wife super friendly these these are people who i'm i'm being truthful these would be your neighbors. At the end of the day, I don't know how much Kimbo loved fighting. I think he liked it a little bit,

especially when he won. I'm sure he loved the paychecks. But at the end of the day, that dude wanted to be in the backyard, probably with a beer or a blunt in his hand, telling stories, cracking jokes, having fun with the fam, and playing a couple of games with the kids.

I really think that's who he was at heart, especially at the time when I interviewed him at that stage of his life. It's a shame he didn't get more of it, but he had some Ws, goddammit. And can we close this Kimbo Slice Appreciation Hour by saying pioneer in chest hair design. Look, I never even thought of these things. Remember he had one chest fully covered with hair, the other shaven, then he had the spider chest hair design. Look, I never even thought of these things. Remember he had one chest fully covered with hair, the other shaven,

then he had the spider web design, then he had the under cleavage with like shapes and stuff. I love that man for that. Luke, do you feel that we were robbed in the ultimate fighter that we never got Kimbo versus Big Brown? Yeah, a little bit. I know you love to throw shots at Brendan despite him being a Showtime brother, so that's fine.

But don't forget, there was also another hair, A little bit. I know you love to throw shots at Brendan, despite him being a Showtime brother, so that's fine. But don't forget, there was also another chest hair aficionado in the UFC around the same time, a little bit later. Brian Ebersole. Remember Brian Ebersole? Yes. The American who came out of Thailand. He would have the harrow that would point up on his chest. Kimbo was not alone.

He may have been the pioneer, but he was not alone. Luke, do you have a large arrow down? Yeah. I mean, do the curtains match the drapes, the carpeting, Luke? You're a disgusting, disgusting human, and you deserve to be executed in front of your family. Fridays, there's no pants and there's no rules. But hey, Luke, that is the show for this week.

We didn't do tips this Friday. We didn't do homework assignments. I've been traveling. It's wild. But we do have some big plans for you guys. A pre-taped holiday Christmas edition coming your way. So please continue to get your questions in. If you want them answered, go to Apple Podcasts.

Give us a review. Five stars if you're willing. And please leave your question. You leave it, I'll answer it. That's how this works. And, you know, we are trying to plan basically a 100th episode party, Luke. I think our 100th episode aligns to be airing

like January 1st or 2nd, right around there. So, hopefully we'll get some big surprises there for the people. And BC, Triple G tonight, Canelo tomorrow, UFC tomorrow. And by the way, the next UFC fight, if I'm not mistaken, BC, after tomorrow is not until January 16th. Wow.

We're going to have a lot of tap dancing to do on this here channel. But I'll say this, BC, I'm also getting a tattoo this weekend, so we'll see how that goes. Oh, yeah, yeah. On the inside of your bicep, right? On the inside of my arm, yeah. Okay. Is that a sensitive area for tattooing, Luke?

I've not had it tattooed, but I'm told that the wrist and then around the elbow is painful. So we'll see. And can you remind me once again, Luke, what you're getting? I keep forgetting. So basically what I did was

I have wanted a super moto, which is a Marine Corps way of saying motivational. I've wanted a super moto Marine Corps tattoo for 20 years and I didn't get one because, you know, everyone's horror stories about what's going to happen if you get a tattoo and blah, blah, blah.

What about your career? But I'm 41. I'm doing okay in my career. I own a home. I have a kid. I'm married. I've never been arrested for drunk driving. Hell, I've never even been arrested at all.

And even in my line of work, I feel like a lot of people have tattoos in this industry. I'm not going to get any on my neck or hands. So why not? I'm financially stable to get any on my neck or hands. So why not? I have, I'm financially stable. So why not? So I reached out to a guy who is a specialist. He has to Bori tattoos, which is the kind you get in Japan with a knit where they,

they do it, you know, um, piece by piece with a needle by hand. Um, who's a Japanese specialist. And I asked him to reimagine the, uh,

Marine Corps logo or the, the emblem, I should say insignia of them the Eagle Globe and Anchor. And you might say, well, should you be remixing something so iconic? Well, funnily enough, I did a bunch of research on this. I mean, this is something I've been thinking about for two decades. If you look around and look at people's individuals' Eagle Globe and Anchor tattoos, everyone remixes it in all different kinds of ways,

whether it's portrait realism versions or they'll add K-bars to it, which is the official knife of the Marine Corps, but just put tons of different sort of spins on it. I've seen the mock-up that he has. It still looks like the EGA, but it's a Japanese traditional tattoo. And the reason why I picked him was one, he's very, very talented, but two, BC, I'm actually not the biggest fan of traditional tattoos in general but one of the major benefits of them is if you get them, no one can sort of figure out when you got it. I mean if it's damaged, they might be able to. But the point

of being is, if you got a barbed wire tattoo everybody knows you got it in the 90s. It's sort of attached. Well it's true it's attached to that era. Traditional style of tattooing, Japanese or American, it's somewhat timeless. So I went with that and it's going to be black and gray

with a little bit of red and it's going to be fucking awesome. Two follow-up questions. One, would you ever get an MK-inspired tattoo to really show the people that this has been the best turn of your entire career, Luke, and your personal life? We get to a million subs, I'll get an MK tattoo.

Easy. Wow. No sweat. Oh, one million. That's a lot of freaking subs, Luke. My other question is, I want to say this seriously. I respect the Marines. Did you ever see the movie Lone Survivor?

Yes. That's the one with Mark Wahlberg, right? Yes. So I haven't seen the movie. It's based on a true story. It is. And I know the story. I haven't seen the movie. I started watching it, though, two days ago.

And all I got through was the opening, because I got a phone call, whatever. You don't care. But the opening is real footage of, like, Marine training, of, like, boot camps and stuff. And, Luke, like, all the guys locking arms and laying in the water for hours on end. Those are SEALs. Are you sure? Well, I've been to Marine Corps boot camp. We didn't do that.

All right. Maybe it was the damn Coast Guard for all I know. All right, Luke, I was about to give your Semper Fi guys a... But you got tested in extreme ways, correct? Yeah. I mean, it was one of the harder things I've ever done in my life in a lot of different ways. So I've been waiting 20 years to get like a real i'm proud of no bullshit you know uh and i'm doing it the right way like this guy's expensive i'm gonna say it's

gonna be huge people think you should get tattoos that are small if you get tattoos that are small they're gonna come out fucked up don't do that they're gonna fade easier a lot um you can go to specialists who can sometimes do it but in general bigger tattoos are better they're much easier to get the detail right, plus to get black outlining and shading, which will last longer. I always recommend people get a little bit more. I put years of thought into this, so I'm ready. Let's do it. I got the

money. I got the willpower. I got the time. Let's fucking go. I hope you have the huevos to sit through it, though, Luke, okay? I can mail you a few packages. I sat for four hours for a tattoo on my ribs. I'll be okay. Yeah, you once sat for four hours and re-watched Holloway

Volkanovski 2 as well, alright? Luke, over and frickin' over again. That's the show this week. Please like, subscribe, tell people, okay? Remember when you used to pass around STDs in college like it was going on in style? Pass around Morning Combat.

Let the people know. At Morning Combat on both social channels there. Follow Luke and I as well. And if you want to send in a submission artwork, you wearing our damn merch, morningcombat at gmail.com is the email. Hey, you want to slide in my DMs? They're open, okay? Yes.

Please stop. If you send me tips to tip things, I'm blocking you. Don't do it. And shout out to Dickles. He was supposed to have some stuff on Wednesday's show, and I guess the email didn't go through, and he sent them to me. We're going to make sure that stuff sees the light of the day. Dickles is a rising star in our stable of fans there, okay?

Shout out to Malco, Showtime, CBS Sports. Yeah, that's all I got, Luke. Okay? You want to tell the people anything? Yeah. I want you to have a safe flight home. Don't get COVID. And I think, are you going to do a post-fight reaction to Canelo?

Yes, I will. Yes. And I will do a post-fight reaction to UFC. I will be there for you. These five words, I swear to you, Luke. Okay? All right. Very good. Well, don't eat all those. These five words, I swear to you, Luke, okay? Alright, very good. Well, don't eat all those eggs in one go

and safe travels and blah, blah, blah. Thank you. Good luck to you on your tattoo and enjoy the fights this weekend, folks, from UFC to Showtime and DAZN, all that good stuff coming your way. Yeah, so I'm Brian Campbell. I'm signing off for now for Luke Thomas.

May all of your eggs be bagged, of course. And I've got two extra words for you. We out. We'll be right back. you