MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC Vegas 118 Results: Is Belal Done? | New Ranking System | UFC White House Week

Episode Date: June 8, 2026

It's Monday morning and that means it's time for Morning Kombat. LT and The Iceman are in the house talking everything from UFC Vegas 118 to the White House event right around the corner.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human. Look at this now. It's what 11 a. Combat. Oh, there is. You fit in seamlessly in this weird MK environment. Do you want a Margarita?

Yeah. Your marks get set and go on. It is set to be one of the most unusual fight weeks, maybe in my entire career, maybe in the history of MMA and it all starts right now on morning combat. Welcome, everyone. My name is Luke Thomas. I join you from the Capitol of the status of news right here in Washington, D.C. On this eighth day of June, 26, I am merely the one half of your hosting duo, joined by my Connecticut brethren, the Iceman himself, Chuck Mindenhall. Chuck, how are you doing, bud? I'm well, man. I'm going to be

infiltrating your neck of the woods coming up here this week. So that's really the, that's really the excitement. I might run into you at some point in this week. Are you going to do what Donald Soroni did, which was the first time I talked to him off the air when he was in D.C., he goes, do you know where the titty bars are? And I had to tell him. You had to tell him. I'm sure you were able to tell him, right? Dude, he was, he was doing Dave Schaller, who by the way, used to do PR for WEC, then UFC, now does PR for the Washington commanders as well as the Philadelphia 76ers. Yeah. He brought Soroni by when I was in Sirius XM and he brings him in like while I'm on air. So then we just do the segment with him.

And then we go to commercial break or it finished or, you know, one of the two. He was like, hey, man, you know what the titty bars are at? I was like, I do. Yes, I do. In any event, if you need to know, I got you covered, Camelot, which on 19th and Am. Now that's Camelot with a K. Yeah, all right. All right.

We'll talk about that off air. But in any event, dude, it's going to be a crazy week. It's going to be a wild one. I went down by the White House or so, well, yeah, I went down by the White House yesterday. The place you have to understand is it's H Street 15th, 17th, Connecticut. That's kind of the square of everything that's blocked off. It's like legitimately hard to see the White House now from Constitution Avenue. They've put up a fencing around the entire ellipse.

And there's now a black tarp that is also on top of the fencing. So like it's hard to kind of like if you're crossing right in front of 16th, then you can get a quick peek at it. But dude, like the entire ellipse is now filled up with all these different pavilions. I will say, I will say no one's talked about this yet because no one's really seen it. Some of these pavilions, Chuck on the White House or excuse me, the ellipse, they're like one story with like a shelter, you know. It's a nice one, but it's just like whatever. And then there are some that are two stories with an enclosed top.

So like, I'm like, I don't know who's getting the air condition. But someone's going to get it. Someone's got a nice setup there. What a trip to see this all transformed before your eyes. I know that you were talking about like a week or two ago when you could see the top of the claw from like a few blocks away. And just how surreal that. It reminds me of like Independence Day or something, you know, like an invasion happening. It is certainly a very unique time.

Look forward to seeing it. Yeah. Yeah. We're going to talk about that a little bit later in the show. We are going to start by talking about the UFC fights that just kind of happened. We'll talk about Belal Mohammed and Gabriel Bonfifem. We got a new ranking system coming, Chuck. We're going to discuss that as well.

So thumbs up, if you haven't already, please hit subscribe. You can follow us on social there. You know the email, MorningCombat at gmail.com. That's going to be the place to reach it. And well, of course, you know we got merch too. We got all kinds of merch. In fact, this is our June exclusive. We have the Genesis design, which is, you know, I'll just be honest, maybe my personal favorite.

Do we have that one ready to go? No, there we go. For some reason, we have to go back and forth. If we got this one, we got the next one. It's like a new feature where it keeps glitching each time I go between them. So I was just going to see them. It's weird. It's weird.

And then we got the combat one that looks, I think we called it the combat one, right, the last one here. But let's show them the other one if we can. It's give me the crown exclusive. I apologize. We have the basketball for the basketball. I'm not going to say the name, Chuck, but the basketball game three. We have the West shirts and the East shirts. We have those available.

All of this. morning combat. Dot shop. You're going to watch game three of the NBA finals tonight? Well, you know I am. I've got to watch. I feel like this is the pivotal game.

Obviously, it's a desperation for the Spurs. So if they go in there and win, I think we have a series. But if they don't, this series is effectively over. Yeah. Well, as I understand it, no team has ever come back from a two-oF

deficit in the finals. I can't imagine, like, the way the Knicks are playing. What is it? Like 11 and 12 games in a road that they've won, but they have broken every opponent that they've played down the stretch. And this is the game, I think,

well, we'll see that. Yeah. A two and oh, right. Yeah. So they've definitely come down to a two o before, but not at home. Yeah. So we have a lot to get to. Before we start with topic number one and Belal Muhammad, let's quickly react if we can, Chuck, to this lawsuit that you may have seen filed yesterday. I'll make this pretty quick. So I spoke to a few different people, two of which had worked in the federal court system. And basically here's what they tell me. There's three things on this lawsuit. By the way, a lot of people are like, why didn't they file it earlier? Well, if you read the lawsuit, there were recent revelations

as late as was it today, the 8th, as late as June 4th that they used to put together their argument. So, you know, it is last minute and you might be like, well, why didn't they started earlier? I think a lot of people just weren't paying attention, especially a lot of like, you know, Trump's critics in Northern Virginia, which is where it's two people from Northern Virginia, two boomers basically from Northern Virginia who are suing. I just don't think a lot of people were paying attention and then some stuff kind of came together late. And like, listen, they obviously just don't, like, anything Trump does, they just want to stop, right? But let's just sort of talk about the merits of the lawsuit.

What I am told is that there's basically three things to pay attention to. Standing is one, like, who can sue? No one can just, like, there has to be a reason why you are able to sue and grounds upon which you were able to sue, right? That's the first one. I'm told that there's some debate over that, but not necessarily. That wouldn't be the thing that holds it up. And in fact, the strong argument from the lawsuit, as it was explained to me, is that. is that the statutes, which the plaintiffs allege the UFC and Trump are breaking,

if you read the statutes, there does not appear to be much debate. They are in violation of them. This includes environmental review before you can erect anything on the White House long, congressional approval. There's two different commissions. There's the America 250 commission. There's the Freedom 52 Commission. These are the ones that are in charge of all the events for all of the America 250

celebrations. This one doesn't, this event has neither anything to do with either of them, and you have to be affiliated at least with one of them for this to be legal. You're not allowed to have any sporting or even sporting related events at the Lincoln Memorial at all. I mean, they're clearly in violation of this. Like that part is actually not that much in debate. The thing that sinks this case in their mind, again, this is all as it was explained to me. I am not a lawyer. I take this for what it is worth. But as it was explained to me, in order to get what they want, which is they want a preliminary injunction so that that would stop this event from happening. In order to get that, the plaintiffs have to be able to show that they would be irreparably harmed.

They have to show that. And that's where this case really gets weak. Because if you look at the harms that they say that they're going to suffer in the lawsuit, it's things like, oh, well, if there had been an environmental review and they were taking public comment, I would have been able to publicly comment. But that's not a huge violation of your life. Or because of all the hoopla around this, it's going to be harder to access the Lincoln Memorial and other monuments. To say nothing affecting kind of, you know, because there'll be loud music at the Lincoln Memorial,

it will affect the solemnity of the Vietnam Memorial. And I don't want to dismiss the notion that the solemnity of the Vietnam Memorial is important. I actually think it's quite important. But is that enough for a judge to be like, we just have to cancel the whole thing? their view is a long shot. That was what I was told Chuck. It's a long shot.

It is not impossible what they told me, but if they had to bet, you know, betting man, such as with it, you can be one, they're betting it, this doesn't work. So the best of your knowledge, okay, we're seeing something up front. They want to get this injunction, but probably doesn't happen. Is there a possibility that there's some kind of legal action or any kind of repercussion from this after the fact? You know what I'm saying?

So when they, so when it's all said and done, do you anticipate, like, from your best understanding that there will be any kind of, you know, backlash in the similar way, like legally to this whole thing? I have no idea, except the one thing I was told was that a thing that could happen is like, yeah, sure, defendants are in violation of the statutes, but I'm not going to declare any kind of preliminary injunction because, you know, I'm just, the harms were not established. Some people will be like, okay, well, then there will still be a hearing after the fact. And then, you know, maybe there could be some, you know, something awarded to the plaintiffs there. But if it's an event that we're talking about and then the event transpires,

a lot of judges will be like, this lawsuit is now just a moot point. So I don't know if there's additional legal vulnerability down the road. But the way it was told to me was that the likeliest thing is if there is, in fact, a judge that says, yeah, no, we're not, we're not, no injunction that goes forward. They might just take the whole case and say, I think we're done here. Okay. Well, I mean, we're officially into fight week at the White House, right? Yeah. We're starting to talk about injunctions and everything coming down. I mean, now it feels like it's real with this whole thing.

It does feel like, you know, the Rushmore, the presidents, you know, are kind of a way on a vacation and the wild sun is like throwing a big bash at the White House and, like, you know, desecrating the whole ground. You know what I mean? It does have this feeling to it. I got to say. So if this is Monday, I'm wondering where things will be by Friday this week. Yeah, and I don't know if folks know this.

There's a no-kings protest. I believe on Saturday or Sunday as well. So there's an anti-Trump protest on the national mall in close proximity to what will be like the fan fest. I'm not, I drove by yesterday, Chuck. I went right down it. And they, you know what I've noticed is they're putting National Guard there now. Right.

Including with their like Humvees and whatnot. So they're putting, they're staging military vehicles kind of all around. And I suspect that, you know, act as some kind of deterrent thing. Listen, the only thing I can guarantee, Chuck is, and I think you probably feel the same. I've just never seen a fight week like this. I've never seen a situation like this.

Expect the unexpected, I think is what I would say, right? Is it crazy that, you know, we just had this, the Verhoeven fight against you sick in front of the, you know, pyramids of Giza, and now we're here at the White House. I mean, who would have known that this is where the fight game was heading like a few years ago, right? This is, you know what? Wild times. Let me know where they're in space.

That's what I want to know. That's probably coming. Although Elon doesn't feel like he's part of the proceedings anymore, you know, so. We'll talk about the UFC White House expectations a little later in the show. But for right now, let's start with what happened over the last weekend. So we start with the main event from the apex. UFC fight night, Muhammad versus Bonfim. And in this contest, former UFC Walterweight champion, Bilal Muhammad,

dropped a clean sweep on the judge's scorecards, losing a unanimous decision to Gabriel Bonfeme. So, Chuck, a lot to unpack. from this one. Let me start by framing it as follows. Is the story of this fight that Walterweight youth are just continuing to surge and replace the old guard? And that, you know, for example, Bonfine might be a real contender now. Or is it the case that just an aging Mohammed employed a very questionable game plan? I lean toward the latter. I don't know how you felt about this, but I was watching it. And let's face it, we have seen Balala and is, you know,

what is he, 37, he'll turn 38 years old next month. He's had a rough stretch where he lost a couple of fights, and he was getting shut down. I know that when he was fighting Leon Edwards, right? For instance, he was still employing that kind of like game plan where it was just, I'm going to break you, I'm going to exhaust you, I'm going to put a pace on you, I'm going to be all over you, I'm going to suffocate you, I'm going to overwhelm you.

It wasn't able to work as well against like Ian Gary, who game planned him very well shut down all of his takedown attempts. And I think the JDM fight even was only a couple of takedowns. were landed out of a bunch of attempts. And it just felt like there's a guy in there, the Canelo Hans Balal, who's starting to say, like, well, you know what? I think I can do this on the feet.

And I think I can box this guy. And I felt like this was very much in evidence in this fight. And maybe he's just a little discouraged with the, you know, with the wrestling portion of this. But it felt to me like he went in there wanting to win this fight on the feet, stood there and traded with him. And realistically, if you look, he had a couple of takedown attempts, the one that one of them was almost like a trick.

It was like he came out of the, for the third round, right when they said fight, I mean, he shot across and tried to take down an attempt almost to catch him off guard, Bonfim, and it didn't work. And he had one other kind of legit, I guess, take down attempt later in that round, and it was fairly easily thwarted. And I just, from that point on, you're like, okay, if we were waiting to see if he's going to do something like this and be effective, it was going to be then. And when you saw it was not effective, I didn't feel like he.

he had any kind of, you know, plan B or anything else. It was a very strange game plan. Man, can I tell you, I got so many fan DMs and emails about Ballal's game plan. Can I tell you about a theory that I might have? Yeah. Okay. So whenever I see something like this, I generally think it falls into one of two categories, right? A wrestler that just doesn't want to wrestle and then wants to strike.

a lot of times you'll see like you'll hear about you know like almost like the opposite of this happening where putting that aside just let me tell you my theory one theory is that ball was injured here and is not revealing that he couldn't move sufficiently to really wrestle he doesn't even start to what was the first attempt the beginning of round three round three he shot across before herb Dean was even out of the way You remember he was like he just shot in like he was going to catch him off guard and like he did yeah like he did Leon in their fight.

Yeah, like he just came right after him and it didn't work, you know. Yeah. Well, it worked against Leon. It did not work in this case. So like, okay, maybe injury is one way to explain it. The other one Chuck that I'm kind of noodling through is like he had to script because everyone's like a why. Bull all's a smart guy. Like if you ever watch his picks and his breakdowns most of the time he's right by the way. And even when he's not, you know, he generally. doesn't have a bad beat. He's got, you know, a couple good ideas about why it would have gone that way. And it didn't, but, you know, he does not, he's not saying bullshit out there. And here's a guy who's scraped and clawed his way to a UFC title. Like, this is not a guy who doesn't understand when he's

losing in these exchanges, Chuck. I have a theory that, like, maybe what happened to him is he had to scrape and claw to get to the title, right? And he did it relatively late in his run. Yes, he did. And I almost wonder if it's not an injury. Let's let's, let's pause. it for the sake of argument that it's actually not an injury and it's something else i wonder if he has like that part of his that getting to a title was such a goal and it was so hard and it took so long yeah that even subconsciously he doesn't have the fire for what comes after it you know if you get the belt when you're 28 chuck you've got fire to defend it deep into your 30s sometimes if you're good enough obviously but if you get it at like 35 36 you know it's a very very different scenario

and I honestly wonder if it's not injury, Chuck, what do you think about my idea that like, even if he's not consciously aware of it, he might be subconsciously experiencing it, and this might be affecting his performance. I mean, I think you're on to something we've, I've thought about this a lot, because if you remember,

the UFC was in no way in a hurry to put him into a title situation to begin with. It was like the Sisyphus thing, right? He's pushing the boulder up the hill. He could never get it there. He was actually able to break through in a situation he was, he was supposed to fail in because he had to go fight Leon in Leon's home country.

It was set up for him to fail. So, like, he goes in there and he does this. This becomes the high watermark of Ballal's career. And I think that when you look at just the setups from there on, like, the kinds of fights that he's had, and also just even his nickname being remember the name because it was like he felt like he was, you know, not being hyped enough at the time. But, like, to go through all of that and then to end up on a card at the, at the, at the meta apex one week before the White House, a completely overshadowed event against a hungry

28 year old or 29 year old guy, whatever Bonfem is coming up who's on a long wind streak, that is stacked against you. And I feel like this is this was kind of a microcosm this week of his entire career. It's almost like when you say that, I really think about these things in terms of like subconscious burnout where you're like, I just don't have the strength. You know, you wonder about like showing up at the gym every day and just kind of putting it in there and with this question of why bother, you know, like something like that within your, in your mindset. But in these last couple of performances, particularly against Gary and now this one,

I just, the guy that we were watching, man, is just not the same guy. And I don't know if that's just a product of age. I think it has to do with something more existential, you know, that he's had to go through for this, his whole career essentially. You know, I didn't bring in the third member of the show here, which is Long Island, Luka, we did hear from him during the t-shirt thing long island sorry about that number one secondly i know you had a bachelor party over the weekend uh did you get a chance to see this fight and if so what is your best

explanation for why ballol refuses to wrestle in ways that we think he ordinarily would i vaguely watched this fight i had it on we had NHL on the you know that game went into double over time we had that game up on the tv that was on the phone i had the over two and a half in this fight as soon as i saw that overhead i pretty much ignored the rest of the fight but uh if you're asking me man i don't know he obviously just fell in love with those canello hands i don't know what the fuck he's doing and people are saying maybe that team in chicago maybe that's not the best like he very loyal he's very loyal to them but it's also like i don't know man he used to be with rufus sport wasn't he but didn't he used to train with duke rufus and stuff i think a while ago i think

he's been with these dudes for some time they're not new i'm just saying maybe he needs to change up something but again he's like you said going to be 38 soon i don't know he might just be It's between him and Leon, dude, the two most recent, well, NJDM now, three most recent welterweight champions are all just looking like shit in their last few fights. It's crazy. I was also going to say, dude, like, you know, for some people, like, what, like, think about Izzy, now Izzy got the welter, or excuse me, the middleweight title and held it for a while, then lost it and then got it back against Poetan, right?

But like, yeah, he hasn't won a fight since. And, you know, Balal had to scrape and claw to get the Leon fight and won it, and he hasn't one sense. I think that there is something, Chuck. Yeah. When a fight, when a belt is like, it takes everything they have to get to it. And especially if they're a senior fighter. And this may not be the case if they're, you know, a little bit younger, but if they're post prime, let's say, right, post prime. And they have to give everything they have to get a belt or recapture a belt. I don't know how much they have after that anymore. You know, can I ask you something too? Because, I mean, this may factor in. It may factor in for a

guy like Balal Muhammad. He was not known, even though he had some, I thought some decent fights on his rise to becoming a champion. He wasn't known as a guy that was must-see TV, right? Like he was, if you're going to see the band, you know, you'd see the front man, whoever that was going to be on the headline, he was going to be like the bongo guy or whatever. He was going to just be on the card. And, uh, but he was kind of ubiquitous. But he made that, you know, he makes this run and he does it in a way that's like the fight, the, the aesthetic he gives you is one of just dictation, right? Like he was all pace, pressure, and just overwhelming you. And it didn't translate. And at some point, you know, I think guys start to, and I remember talking to Dan

Henderson about this a long time ago, you know, just like at some point you're like, well, I want to, I want to show him I can knock people out. I want to show him that I can go in there and do this stuff. Do you think, like in this particular case, it's like, I have nothing to lose on some larger scale where he's like, I just want to go in there and knock a guy out. You know what I mean, like, and not win the way that I usually do, but to fight a fight that I think is in me, you know, and to do it. Like, is there any possibility that he's just trying to be more exciting in a fight like this? I mean, I don't want to dismiss that as irrelevant. I think that that might be animating it and maybe even more than I'm willing to give it credit. I think the part for

me, Chuck, where that's really hard for me to process is not so much that he might try and keep the fight on the feet more than normal. Yeah. But like, dude, if we're in round four and you're getting tuned up, I, you know, you have to know you're losing. Right. Like you have to know you're losing. This corner was clear with him too, I think.

They were like, yeah, dude, you're down. You are down, you know. It wasn't like the corner was like, we got this, blah, blah, blah. The corner was kind of feeding him the truth. And it didn't really change what he was doing. And it didn't really change. Like, that's the part to me. It's like, I can imagine for long stretches of the fight,

having an approach that didn't work. And it just, you know, for whatever reason you couldn't get out of first gear. But a lot of times later in fights, guys who really want to win will find some other kind of gear. And like nothing really changed. Like that's the part for me. It's like, so if he's injured,

of course you can't change. Like you're just stuck however you are in this fight. But if it's something else, a deal, and that's the other part too, Chuck, like, if there is something mentally affecting him, some people might think of it like, oh, he's aware of it and he's fighting it.

but and that could be the case too but it doesn't necessarily need to be it could be the case that he's feeling something and is not really aware of it and is like doesn't know it's manifesting through these like you know strange performances relative to his actual skill set but he may not be aware of like there actually is something

within him that is you know affecting the performance in this way in which case he hasn't had a chance to really even interrogate it yet I'm just saying I've just it's a very very very very difficult for me to believe that someone could be getting hurt in the way that Belaw's got a great chin like Bonfine was landing on him and and he just took it I'm like no one just does that if they have a better chance and they really really really want to win I I wonder strategically you know for the first two rounds

maybe he's saying I want to stand with him and maybe even set a trap for the third round because this is obviously when he shot across and he was like you wonder if strategically is like we're gonna see we're gonna play one way and then we're going to do something else and it gets thwarted and then there was just nothing more there. And in fact, in that third round, you mentioned him having a chin. I mean, that shot that Bonfim landed that knocked Ballal's mouthpiece out and then he just stood there laughing had to have been the broken moment, right? Because you're just like at that point, if you had that strategy of saying like,

if we're down on the scorecards, heading in the third, we're just going to take it into my realm, we're going to start to wrestle on all that. And you can't. And then you get hit with that kind of shot. That had to been discouraging. And also, like, you put yourself. so far behind the eight ball there was there was not a lot of point in trying for takedowns in the fourth and fifth round if you're down three nothing right like it just feels like at that

point unless you you have a submission packet like you're trying you're going for something specific it you know nothing was going to work so it's almost like he was doubling down down the stretch as bonfine was completely relaxed on the feet like delivering that right hand those jabs it felt like he might have thought that that was his only path at that point was to wade through something and landed. But it was just, it was frustrating to watch. If you've known Balaah Muhammad for this career, uh, it certainly wasn't the guy that we'd seen, you know, midway through all the way to his championship, right? Like I felt like he was, he, he always had an extra gear or a way to break you. And that just was not in evidence. And it felt like he broke in

that third round. Um, consider something, right? So in the Edwards fight, this is the last fight he's one. This is the one where we all know in. July of 2024, he captures the title. In that fight, Chuck, he went nine for 13 on takedites. Okay? Next fight. J.D.M. Fight. This is in May of 2025. He goes three for nine. So, going from nine of 13 to now three of nine. Both the total amount of takedowns and the amount of attempts have gone down. Next fight against Ian Gary. He goes 0 for seven.

So once again, another decline in the amount of takedowns and a decline in the amount attempted. And then his last fight, which was, yes, or Saturday, was zero of two. So, like, he's just, it's just, it's like a part of his game. It's like the leg kicks of Joseado. They're just drifting away. Right. He's letting it go. Why?

Why? Why is the thing that actually got him the title, nine for 13 takedowns in the title, in the title fight? Why is that going away? I mean, it just doesn't seem accidental to me, Chuck. It just doesn't seem like. There might be something bigger in play, but I mean, I know, you know from talking to guys, who had a, you know, wrestling-centric approach and maybe, like, just overwhelming you

with, like, that pace and pressure that I keep talking about, they, it's hard to maintain it. And you wonder to what point you can, you know, show up to the gym every day with that kind of game plan. I don't know fully, like, if it's just a conscious decision, but this also, that, that's where age and just kind of drive really are going to factor in, because that is something that you've got to be preparing in ways that, you know, you're going to be able to, you know, do that to a, to, like, a world class. athlete. And that's what I meant. Like, maybe he's getting discouraged with his own way of

fighting over the course of time because of that 0 for seven. I felt like Ian Gary was the one who kind of was supposed to. He just had, he kind of had masterfully game planned him. And I don't know if he kind of showed some stuff or what, but it's just not the same guy. Like you, I think that illustration, what you just went through from the, from the Edwards fight, tells you everything, right? About the difference in what he is and kind of maybe even his approach, because he's not trying for the takedowns as much. Belal had a quote. afterwards we have the graphic here I'll read it to you he says quote you don't find out who you are when everything goes your way you find out when it doesn't grateful for the journey grateful for the lessons

i'll be back you know and it sounds like a very triumphant message even in the moment of loss chuck but it's like you know sometimes i see this when fighters say it and it's like they're saying this to help themselves get out of the predicament that they have now found themselves in you know what I mean, like, it's a self-affirmation after you've been dumped by your girlfriend kind of a thing, you know? Yeah. I give it to him on that level because, dude, like just being on this card, being on an apex card before the, you know, the big event. And you're just so drowned out by this whole thing. And I'm like, it's just such a tough, it's a tough look for a former champion to be kind of relegated in that way.

And he's had to kind of almost have this defiance his whole career. So I would have expected nothing less, but, man, just going through what we're talking about. I don't know how much he has left. You know, who would you put him against? You know what I mean? Like, if you book him again, right? Like, who do you, what do you do with him at this point? Is he still top?

Would you still put him against, like, maybe somebody in the 10 to 15, something like that? Yeah, I mean, currently, again, this is, they haven't updated this yet. But currently, this is from, you know, essentially pre-fighted. He's sitting at five. You know, you've got Usman sitting at eight. I don't know if Usman wants that. You've got Buckley sitting at nine, Amasov sitting at 10, like all of those. would be. Yeah, Amosov would be. I mean,

again, you'd be trying to get Amosov over, right, or bigger, a bigger way after his brilliant performance. Can you imagine? Trying to get a Belator fighter over your old champ? That's crazy. That's bad. I just saw Long Island Luke say Mike Malat. I mean, that's not a bad shout either. Like, if you're trying to give escalation with a little bit of a brand name

and all that, former champion, that's a good way to go. But that's the kind of competition he should face. Fair enough. Now, that brings us to the Bonfeme situation. Now, Bonfine entered this fight. Now, again, that's not what he would be after they redo the rankings. But entering this fight, he was sitting at 11. So he's going to jump pretty high.

I will say, I was not like amazed by this performance. But number one, if you beat a former champ, that's obviously, you know, a great win. He won 50, 45 on all three judges scorecards. So not a single judge gave a single round to the law, which I don't think anyone even thinks is controversial whatsoever. He deserved it. I would have liked him to get the finish, but Ballal is very tough. So I don't think that's the end of the world. I guess what I would say is I did think he looked pretty good.

I thought his take down defense, such as he needed it. I mean, one of the truths is like that he hasn't wrestled too much in the last two fights. And that's true. But part of it is he's faced some pretty stiff resistance early. And I'm wondering also, Chuck, if maybe part of it is like, all right, well, these guys have like really good, take down defense. I don't know how much energy I want to expend even wasting my time with, you know, shit like this. So I thought he looked really good. I would say I'm excited as he's, I think he's 28, 29, I'm excited to see him mix it up with other young contenders.

But this doesn't to me feel like the JDM win. The JDM win felt a little bit more hard fought. And I know he's lost subsequent then, but he's fought really good guys since then. Right. You know what I mean? This one to me almost felt like easy is not the right word at all. But I'm not just saying, I need one more good one against another young contender. I feel like we'll tell me a lot more.

He certainly, like, you took a couple of shots. If you weren't talking about Belal, it was probably the first round where he looked the best because there were a couple times he put a couple combinations on him, was able to get inside and do some work. But for the most part, what you saw was Bonfim understanding, like, if this is how we're going to fight, I can win this fight. Like he understood something early in that fight and he was able to do it. I think he was certainly trying.

Like that third round where he landed a couple of shots, especially. I felt like he was trying to put him away. And obviously, Ballal was very tough. But there was a feeling. The Bond family was like, you know what? I could play this game all day because he looked massive in there against Ballal. And he was able to just kind of land that jab, those leg kicks coming in off combinations. And then the big right hands he was going to, it was like a repeat sequence that was going on the whole fight.

And Ballal opting to kind of play it, like, you know, took it. He just kind of took the shot. So in a weird way, like I know what you're saying. It's not easy, but he saw the formula. And he was like, I'm just going to stick to this and look for my shot. it's there, but otherwise I'll just coast through this, right? That's what it felt like. Yeah, I'm trying to do some math here. Okay. Yeah, I mean, there's not a huge difference. He's, what is his normal average for Ballol? Strikes landed per minute. So his strikes,

the amount of strikes he's landed has gone down too. So for example, his overall average is 4.36. If you actually look at his last two fights, it's either right around three and a half or less than that. So in other words, his average was even higher before this too. Like his offense just to me feels like it's winding down. You know what I mean? That is weird. I don't know how else to say it. That is weird to look at the stats like that. I mean, like especially that because if you're trying now to use your hands more if you're forced to, you think that that would go up just relatively based on, you know, what you're being forced to do. That one surprises me a little bit. He did have moments in the first round. Like, did you see that? Like, it seemed like I thought we were going to have a much more competitive

to fight about two minutes in. Like he had a couple of good sequences and it just evolved from there, you know? Who would you like to see Bonfem up against? We kind of indicated who's a little higher. Leon Edwards is not a bad fight. Camaroo. I don't know if that's what people want. Tomorrow's got Drichus, right?

Like coming up. Oh, right, right, right. Yeah. So, I mean, I thought about this too. Like, yeah. He did call out JDM. I see Long Island point that out. To me, that's like if that's not a bad, I mean, that's a very strategic.

If you're looking at the top five, right? Let's just say that he's at the cuspy six or five or whatever it is. If you're looking at that top five, I would say the JDM is probably. We went through this whole thing after his process loss about JDM kind of looking a little worse for the wear. And also just maybe people are on to kind of how to beat him a little better. So I think that Bonfim would be a good, that's a good matchup for him if he's just trying to make the next leapfrog, right? Like you can then beat another champion and you would be in the mix of that thing. So I think strategically calling him out was the right move.

I think so too I think that's a good one especially the guys on the down swing and he's largely gonna just strike with you which not that Bonfim can't do stuff on the ground obviously his submissions is a big part of his game but that's another part I had to look this up because I was like who

I wanted to know who has even tried to take Bonfim down like has anybody tested him this way very often and I mean honestly a lot of these guys had the last few fights he's had he's barely been tested in this sense at all I think it was what's that guy's name Anglosa. Is it, you know what I'm talking about that?

Was the only guy, if you go down that far, who had, like, more than a few takedown attempts. I think he had some moderate success with it. But it's one of those things that you're like, you think the Bala would want to go in there and actually test that a little more, just given that he was kind of unproven.

I know he's shown that he's very sturdy. And he's a big sturdy guy, but you know, somebody's going to, like Bonfame is one of those guys that somebody is going to do that with, you know, and we're going to find out a little bit more that we're not seeing yet, but Balal certainly didn't try it, you know, but JDM, going back to the little thing,

would be the fight for him in that sense, because he would be able to, I think, continue the escalation he's on. We shall see what happens with Bilal Muhammad, who I still think has something in the tank, but the stats, Chuck, kind of indicate that, like, it's just the tank is about to start running on E here. Yeah, at least

he's, I mean, like you said, he's a very thoughtful kind of commentator and analysis, and I think that he has a career, if he wants to pursue it, you know, and something along that, right? I feel he'll be able to talk about the sport in a big way when he's done, you know. All right, let's go to topic number two, which would be the rest of this UFC fight night card, which I got to say, we talked about this on Friday Showchuck. You know, again, you have to rate

and grade things a bit on a curve, but for an apex card, we even said on Friday, there's actually a pretty fair amount of meat on this bone. Let's go! An IHard Radio experience. You and a pal in Montreal and Oceaga, with four nights at residents in downtown Montreal. Flights from Porter Airlines, two weekend gold tickets, and $1,000 of cash. Please love it.

Lord, Zara Larson, Tema Gray, Sombor, 21 pilots, and more. Download I-Hard Radio. Listen to I-Hart new music for 10 minutes and enter to win. Osiaga, 26. Every day you listen is another chance to win. However, there is still some strangeness to the whole thing.

All right. In your co-main event, What the fuck was this? Brendan Allen, who was ranked fourth, was taking on Edmund Shabazzian, who was unranked. And, yeah, Alan couldn't get the finish, but basically boxed him up. I think he had 3027 on two judges scorecards and 1, 29, 28, which, yeah, fair enough, that sounds about right. Chuck, we were asking last week, what was the point of this fight? I guess we'll, you know, see when we watch it.

Now we watched it. Chuck. Yeah. What was the point of this fight? fight. Well, he's coming at, like, he beat Vittori, right? Like, he beats Vitori, he kind of gets rolling and he beats, you know, Renier de Ritter was the one that I was like, okay, well, this is now, he's going to be fighting somebody in the top five space, but so to draw Shabazzian, who's not, I don't believe he was ranked, right? Like, he was unranked going in. Unranked.

It feels like, I mean, from the UFC's perspective, I have no idea, honestly, how Brendan Allen viewed this fight, like kind of going in. But from Shabazian, it was like everything to gain, everything to win. Like you're getting a chance to kind of leapfrog into a top five, you know, ranking out of nowhere. But for, for Brennan Allen, it was everything to lose. Psychologically, I don't know how, like, he kind of handled this. I know he had big respect for Shabazzian. He was saying, you know, that he's a better version of even Strickland and all that stuff. But I'm like, from his perspective, man, I don't understand why this fight was put together. This was like one of those, you know, if you win, you're just kind of in this exact same space. I don't even know if you move.

up at all. Like you just kind of are in the same space. And if you lose, you, it's, it's like devastating to your ranking, right? Like you drop out of it potentially. And that's not a good setup for a guy like that. You don't usually see an unranked guy get like a number four or number five guy like this, unless it's all about trying to get Shabazzian over, which makes no sense. Because I don't feel like the UFC has ever really been on that bandwagon either. I mean, I think that they have wanted for Shabazzian to turn the corner for a while. And he's definitely gotten better. but yeah he's had a better run yeah that's just would have been his best if he'd put together it was a four in a row would have been his best senses coming out of the gates when they were

kind of high on him yeah um yeah and the other part too is like he's like okay you lost okay if in the abstract that's not such a big deal but it's like you got blanked i think on i think two of the judges score cards and more to the point it's like he didn't get a knockdown he landed some good shots on brin allen that's true like brendan all in the face was a little bit messed up by the end of that fight But it's not like he, you know what I mean? Like, oh, you know, close but no cigar, right? It wasn't, right.

It wasn't ever really close. It was one of those things where it's like, right, a guy who's not bad fought a guy who's good. What the fuck was the point of that? I just don't know. And even. Yeah. And in the aftermath, what are you supposed to say? You know, like if you're Brendan Allen, like, I want a title shot, but you're like, it's funny.

You ask that. Okay. We actually, we actually, don't we have that? Do we have Brendan Allen calling for a thing? No, we have Brendon. No, we have it. Brendan Allen, this is what he thinks the win. This is an awkward, yeah.

This is what he thinks the win gets them. Here we go. If they came to you and said, Brendan, you did us a solid on this one, man, it's just your shot. Call it what you want.

I mean, what do you think you deserve next? Man, it's hard to say. I don't think I deserve anything. I earned, I try to earn everything I get. I mean,

fuck, I hope Sean goes out here. He's the champion, so hopefully he picks me, you know, let's run this shit back. It's been six years since we fought. I think I was beating him going into it.

If you watch our fight at different angles, you could tell he didn't hit me with what the strike said. It wasn't there. So I think I get him out of there now. I think he's, I think Edmund's a better version of him. He's younger. He's more technical. He's, you know, faster. So I think Edmund's a better version of him, and I think I get Sean out of there and new.

But you never know. So if not, like I said, let me a Nasceden fight. If Nashueney wants to sit out and wait, that's fine. Let me fight the winner of Usman and Drichus. in October, maybe early November at the worst. So we'll see right now. I'm going to go get these injuries checked. I'm going to talk with Hunter and we'll see what's next.

It's a tough spot. I mean, here's what I'll say because I don't want to say that Brendan Allen got nothing from this. I was actually pretty impressed with his boxing or striking overall anyway. He had good elbows in the clinch, some good knees too. Like he was kind of bad, certainly by the end of that fight, he was kind of battering Shabazzian. And I was like, you know what? His stand-up has really come a long way. And I thought that this was, you know, some decent proof of it. But at the same time, it's like, okay, as good and as fluid as he looked, generally speaking, this is just an unranked guy. Like, like, you know what I mean? Like, it's just very, I don't want to be demeaning, but I don't, I can't, I can't say, Chuck that it's got all this value. It just doesn't, you know.

It doesn't. And I know that they, he has, you know, history, I guess, with Sean Strickling going back to the pandemic, I think, right? because it was that fight was a while ago and I know he got finished in that fight. But unfortunately, it's not one that anybody remembers really. It's just not a fight that people talk about often. So I'm like, even in that sense, if you're like, you know, sometimes you'll see a guy use the mic effectively and just kind of make it about himself. I just, I don't know if he can leapfrog anybody. It's just, it felt like a stay busy fight. And he did look good, but he took damage.

And like, I don't know, like he's mentioning his injuries. if he has anything substantial there, I would say that it's probably a net negative that he even did this fight, you know, because I don't think he can move forward here. Or move up, I should say. Elsewhere on the card, hey, Long Island, did I call this one or did I call this one?

In one of the best upsets, Tom Nolan. Well, you said it was going to be a good fight. It was going to be a good fight. And I didn't, I didn't understand the odds being as far apart. You're like, well, Faraz, Ferez, Farez, Farez. I don't know, it's Fraz. No, it's Farazah Hobby as far as Ziam. Okay.

Was that I thought that they were a little lopsided. I'm like, this one to me, Tom Dolan was very much a live dog in this one. I get halfway credit, maybe not full. What was the score cards on this one? Because I was also watching this with no audio and I thought it was somewhat. Like I remember when it went to the cards, I was like, uh, who won, who won? Let's see. I can tell you.

I think. Um, no, hold on. I got it. Give me one second. 29, 28th, though, or was it 30? Hold on. No, no, there was, there was, it was definitely a little bit more mixed in that regard. Here we go. No, 3027, 37, 29, 28.

It felt closer to that. Yes, that's exactly right. It absolutely felt closer than that. Watching it because Tom Nolan would have to like sometimes retreat to a body lock to kind of slow the fight down for himself at times. But dude, this Aussie kid, 26 years old, black belt and jujitsu, there has been something about watching him, Chuck. And I can't quite put my finger on it.

But the first time I saw him was not the one where he, his fight where he underperformed. It was the one where he began his actual turnaround. And I was very, very impressed by him. I was like, this dude, he's still too young to be like, oh, I don't know, you know, how far is he going to go? I don't know exactly. But I think he's great. I think the fight that everyone is, you know, he lost to Nicholas Motta, which is, you know, not that great. But, dude, since then, that was three years ago, basically, almost, two and a half years.

He's gotten way, way, way better. And I am, I am a believer in Tom Nolan, big time. It's funny because it was Charlie Campbell, like he got that performance bonus for that knockout last. And I was, that's when you start paying attention. Like, okay, well, this guy still very young. You needed to see him against the guy like Zion just to say, like, is he on the level or not? I was with you. I didn't really know that the odds were that skewed until like maybe 15 minutes beforehand.

It was like something like Zion was like a minus 300. Is that right? Long Island was something in that range. It was. Yeah, they got closer on fight night because I got him at like minus. Yeah, 300 minus 298 something like that. It's kind of crazy. But design, I mean, I felt like in a weird way, you tell me if I'm wrong, it felt like

it was like a spotlight moment for the Frenchman. It felt like they were kind of like saying, watch this guy. You guys are going to be impressed with it. And every now and again, they run into this berserker like, you know, he looks like he's from like the gas and sip or something, doesn't he? Like he's like a wild dog in there. But he is, he's mean and he's aggressive and he's strong. I feel like he's, it's kind of a wiry frame, but he is very strong.

you see in some of those exchanges where he, like, he would just kind of bodily turn Ziam into it, like, or take him down and hold him there. And, like, those type of things, I'm like, that's difficult. If you watch Ziam fight, like, you know how difficult that was. So to me, this was like that, that eye-opening fight that you're like, okay, this dude is for real, right? Like, I feel like he's a player in that division.

Long Island, did you get a chance to see this one? Again, I had it on the phone, no volume. So, you know, I'm loose. But, but again, I had, I was invested because I needed Ziam to win to hit a parlay. So I was like every time looking at it like, oh, he reversed position. Okay, maybe he's got this round. But again, I guess it wasn't as close as I was. Honestly, to me, because I called his, he's now no longer in the UFC and he fought in

XFC and he did lose an XFC, although it was a, you know, a tough fight, which is Slava Claus, you know, Vyacchislav Borshev. He fought recently in this sort of a small organization I've called fights for. And I just feel like getting that guy in front of someone who's young and talented but still green. If they can pass that test, they're not, they're not done by any stretch of the imagination. They've got more work to do.

But to me, Chuck, that's like a really good win for a young guy on the unranked come up to have. And then to your point, then he gets to Charlie Campbell win. And then he had to grind in this one. I agree. The scores don't really quite tell the story. He had to grind his way on this one. But whether it was by hook or by crook,

he found a way to get it done. And dude, at 26, you're like, how good can this guy be by 20? 28, 29. Pretty fucking good. Sometimes you need the setup, right? Like you need the guy. You got to be an underdog. Nobody's talking about you. And this is how you arrive on the map. Do you remember when I think it was Josh Crispy, right?

He was like the guy. He had a ton of, it was like a ton of like hype coming into this fight with Dustin Poria. And then Dustin Poria wins the fight. And you're like, wait, we should be paying attention to Dustin Poria. It was like that instantaneous. And that's what this felt like to me. It was like one of those moments you're like, we're paying attention to the wrong guy here. Dude, I had so many people blowing me up about Josh Crispy. They're like, I know, me too. And tear people limb from limb and then Porreier handled him, you know. Isn't that so weird?

Like guys like that, they come around and they get the hype and then they just, that's one fight. And then it was almost like you didn't really hear about Josh Crispy anymore. It's a weird one. It's because you get these guys who go into gyms and they just bully people and they don't realize that they're bulls. Sometimes, sometimes bullies know. This is one of the funny things about growing up in MMA.

One lesson I've learned, Chuck, is that some people are bullies and know that they are bullies, right? Right. But some people are bullies and don't know it. They just think, oh, I'm just naturally going to do this to everybody. And then you get a guy from Louisiana who fucks you up and you're like, oh, right, I'm not this guy at all. I'm not at all who I thought I was. And then you become a very different person as a result of that. Did you, were you okay with Ziam's performance or did he feel like he was being a little overhyped there? I mean, I didn't think he looked bad. No, I didn't either. I mean, it wasn't quite like the crispy thing in that sense. I felt like you've had a good showing. The thing that I will say is it looked to me like, honestly, one of the things that Nolan had going was he was hustling more.

He was just trying a little bit harder. I mean, obviously, there's more to the technical positions and the strategy. But like as a general observation, Nolan was the one kind of pressing the attack or pressing the counter attack or you know trying to just control the terms a little bit more aggressively and I think it paid off this is what I mean like finding ways to win when your skill sets not quite there yet yeah yeah but your youth can really propel your fire you know I will say that you know a lot of these apex cards they might have a good main event and maybe a decent comia this was actually I thought the most intriguing apex fight we've had in a while in that sense because you're like man I don't

know this is like you're talking about young guys coming up and uh I felt like that was, you know, that's a good moment. That's a good win in the sense like, you know what I mean? You're not, you're not, you don't have big expression on the car, but the guy comes through in that way. And otherwise a card that will be forgotten, you know, so that's, he got the most out of his apex visit. All right.

Let's go talk about Bryce Mitchell, who, okay, I did tell you, I was long out, I didn't quite understand the Luna thing here. And I, I really stand by that. So he dominates Santiago Luna on the ground. Now, he didn't get a sub until, like, real, real late into the third round. This is now, I think, his third fight at 135. He has looked phenomenal.

I'll double check that in just a second. But first, let me say that, like, I thought Dominic Cruz actually did a really good job commentating this fight, Chuck. Yeah. Because what he was pointing out was like, yeah, wrestling for wrestling, Luna's going to be better. But if you can counter wrestling positions with jujitsu positions,

you know, I'm just going to take the back in a way that they wouldn't ordinarily do, for example. I mean, there's, there is a different. of backtaking in wrestling, but it's very, very different. You know, if you can do that, you can just win positions. And that is exactly what he ended up doing for long stretches of it, passing to him out and finally threatening with this. I got to say, what do you think, Chuck?

Can Bryce be as big or maybe a bigger threat at 35 than he is at 45? Was it 45? I think he'll be a bigger threat. That is a, it's a better division he's going into, though, too. Like, there's so many monsters of Bantamweight. but this was considering like, you know. Second fight, second fight. Yeah, yeah.

But he's looked, I mean, he's looked pretty good, right? Like in both fights. And I feel like there's a little bit of humility to what he's doing now that. And I know he's polarizing figure and all that. But afterwards, he's basically saying, hey, this kid's, what, 21 years old. He took this fight on seven days notice. And I should be able to beat him, you know, that type of thing. And I'm like, okay, well, he's got a point.

But it felt like it was that he was just above. you know, it felt like he was big brothering this kid in the sense like there was one point where Luna had his neck and they're like, I don't think it's tight and he's trying to get it under the neck and you just see Bryce Mitchell just kind of coolly playing it out. And as soon as he's out of it, boom, he's in a dominant position and it's the rest of his round, right? That's fairly impressive, you know, for a guy like Bryce Mitchell, who's kind of been doing this for a while and this is kind of his wheelhouse to see him being effective in the ways that he wants to be. tells me that he's probably on the right track.

You would have liked to have seen it. Who was he supposed to fight? It was like Henry or whatever that guy's name is, the long-haired fellow. You know what I'm talking about? Victor Henry. He's a good fighter, by the way. He's a good fighter.

I mean, who knows what we'd be saying right now? But I feel like that's a very promising result for Mitchell, and it certainly looks like he's got a better chance to do something in this division. He looked good, though, right? Like, he looked physically good. It didn't look like he was emaciated or anything like that. I will say that the weight cut does see.

seem challenging for him. Yeah. I do think that 31, though, that's not. Sure it is. This is a moment to do it for sure. And, you know, we often say like, well, it's, you know, what did, what did Brendan Allen get out of fighting an unranked guy? And it's like Santiago Luna's unranked. But so is Bryce. Bryce is unranked at 35. To my knowledge, right? Let's see. I mean, we would pull this up at 35. Where are we? Yeah. Yeah, he's unranked. He's not, I mean, at 13, 14, 15, you got Raoul Rosas, Howony, Barcelos, and Farid, Basharat. Those are tough-ass fights i don't know if that's ridiculous i know dude that's a let that that's 12 13

excuse me that's 13 14 fucking 15 i mean farad bacharot is 15 holy shit yeah yeah anyway i will say i think he can be a big threat here too i fully agree plus he's got a lot of experience he's fought tough fucking guys as well you know he's fought jane on silver he fought iliotta's true yeah you know he's he's not gonna face who's a puncher like that at 35 you know what I mean like I don't know who that would be I mean who's long out who's a puncher like that at 35 am I missing someone off top off the break David Martinez he's a puncher like ilia this is a power puncher I don't know who he's a little too light on his feet to be a power puncher at song you dong hit's hard I guess you don't get pretty hard yeah fair enough okay but you get

my point like he wouldn't be facing chuck a threat that he's not right before I just think it really comes down to how much he can implement his wrestling and grappling game. That's really what it is. On either division, right? Like, it doesn't matter. It's like if he's doing, if he's playing his game, he's going to be a lot better. He also has been saying some pretty interesting stuff in the media. He had, I thought one of the more folks were over praising his criticism of the UFC White House event.

And the reason why is he's like, the government shouldn't be the business of entertaining us. And it's like, that's not quite right. Because, for example, the government for decades here in D.C. for July 4th will, have a fireworks celebration. They'll have the 8th and I Marines do public. They'll do like these big, you know, we're going to throw rifles at each other and catch its ceremonies for the public. I mean, they still do the Easter egg hunt and they used to do like that. They do the Easter egg role every year at the White House. So like the notion that they can't do anything related to entertainment seems wrong. But it was at least him trying to think through a cogent response to it. And it went viral.

So someone actually asked him after the fight to react to the virality. Here's what he said. Is it nice to know that most people agree with your thoughts on the White House and just the government and their place in sports, or their place that should not be in sports? Of course, I always want people to love me and agree with me. And, you know, that's not my motivation for saying what I say is it's not a consensus or trying to appease people. If I say something, it's generally because I think it's the right thing to say. if my heart's in the right place.

But it's really nice to see people understand what I'm saying, that I'm not being malicious and that I am happy to be part of the UFC. I am grateful to be here, but I have a voice too, and I can have my opinions while still respecting everybody. And I was just really happy to get up here and share that stuff. So thank y'all for giving me that opportunity. I mean, I wish he had never said he would have gone fishing with pre-meth Hitler. I was just about to say that.

Maybe Hitler would be. So nice and normal. Yeah, maybe he would be a good fishing partner. I don't know. Like, this makes you rethink things. I was literally just thinking that. Chuck, I look down this card. You've got the Iwo Baronevsky or how you say?

I can never say his name correctly. Alessandro Costa, they both scored first round KOs. But there was a bunch of people on this card who looked pretty good to me. Who stands out to you? Sozo, in the first fight, Did you see that one? Like the women's fight? Yeah, that was pretty impressive, man.

Just that right hand. It's fucking brutal. I know. I was like, that's the way you kick off a good card right there. And I thought Cheras, I never know if that's how he pronounces his name. Chirres.

Yeah, like he looked. Chiraz. Yeah. Also very good. There were a couple of good performances on this. Some really nice finishes. I mean, in the prelims, I thought the prelims delivered, actually.

Dude, I'll tell you what, that poor Ariane, carna losa excuse me like dude if you get hit chuck and then you try to catch yourself facing forward on your hands yeah and then you try to write your posture if your opponent is at distance you're gonna get your face punted into fucking orbit it was like that too as she got as she got up it was like boom it was like a place kicker right it was like bam i'm not saying that you don't want to get up from that circumstance but i'm saying like yeah i don't think pulling guard in circumstances like that is necessarily the worst idea.

Yeah. Because just planting your hands and then you're trying to get up. She just cocking back right when she's doing that. It was terrible. I was like, yo, holy shit. Carlosie actually looked before that like looked pretty good. Like she was and she was the big favorite, right? Long on the line, she was the big favorite in the fight. Um, so carter Lose was a dog. Oh, she was the dog. Okay. All right. I might have had that reverse. But she looked okay in that fight like in that lead up until the moment it went really. south for her very quickly. Nice choke, by the way, off the scramble from Joe Anderson, Brito.

I thought he looked pretty good. That was a nice win. You can see, like, they've changed the name of this thing. That was always taught to me as a power guillotine. Yeah. That's how that's been called, but there's other names for it, obviously. Ninja Choke is one that you'll often hear. Chelsea Chandler getting an arm bar in the first round.

By the way, she got her shit rocked early in this fight. Kind of had to, not like storm back, but collect herself a little bit, and then was able to get this arm bar and she had a massive celebration afterwards. As you mentioned, Edgar Chaites you know, kind of beating the fuck out of Bruno Silva in this one. I mean, you know, if you look at it's a first round stoppage, Chuck, but like first couple minutes, you know,

it's relatively back and forth with Chita's getting the best of it. By minute three, it was real bad. By minute four, it was just about finished, you know. Yeah. He's a big flyweight, man. I mean, he's a big dude for that division. So I could see that being problems. Marcus McGee looked competent against John Janus. There's not much to say about that. I thought he looked well-rounded and ready. Had a couple good switch stands lead hooks,

but I don't have much to say. As we indicated, the Polish don't know, Ewo. He's never been out of the damn first round. I mean, that's both cool and like a big red flag. You know, it's like what happens to this guy. You're great and also you're definitely not going to win a title. You know what I mean?

So there's your card right there. A fun one, if I do say so, at least for a UFC Apex card. Yep. All right. Let's speak about one more thing that got announced on the broadcast, Chuck. And that is they announced new rankings. New rankings are coming soon. They're going to scrap their existing rankings system, Chuck.

We've got a bit of a graphic here. I'd like to put on the screen. This is Dana White talking about it. Oh, excuse me, Brendan Fitzgerald. I apologize. Brendan Fitzgerald says, quote, a new UFC ranking system is currently being developed that will be based on measurable performance, not opinion, not popularity, by evaluating who you beat, strength of competition, activity, and consistency. The system is being designed to reward performance, Chuck, and better reflect results inside the octagon, end quote. So, you know, based on measurable performance,

I wonder what you think that means beyond what they've articulated here, if you do. And I guess the really important question is, do you think this will be an improvement to the way that the rankings currently operate? It seems like this has to be an improvement, only in the sense like we have this faceless, kind of amorphous media presence that votes on this? Do you know a single person who's been doing this at all? Like, when I say that it's the most irrelevant people in MMA media, that even might be too kind. Like, tenuously attached to MMA at this point. Like, just very strange. That whole process, and we've been talking about this for years, never really made sense and there were certain there were certain things within the rankings

that would just really strike you as absurdities. Like you would see something like Colby Coventon, I know that Robbie Fox had pointed this out to Dana White at one point was like 750 days he'd had like one fight his previous win was in 2022 and yet he was still ranked in the top 15

and you would be like there's no there's no way that he should be ranked and you would think if you're doing some kind of like formula, right? And there's like a value system within what they're talking about that that wouldn't happen anymore, that you just wouldn't have a Colby Covington in your rankings. But until we see

that, until we see like how these metrics are going to be, like how they determine if there's a point system or like how they figure out the strength of schedule versus like quality of win and all this stuff. I need to see what all that looks like what the formula is and then

you would understand if it's better. I can't help but think though no matter what. that will be better than the standing ranking system, which we all adhere to on some way. We've been referring to it on this podcast quite a bit because this is the official UFC ranked. You've got to like play their game when you're looking at it. So you would want it to be the best it can be. And I unfortunately, you have to wait and see if that plays out. Because I think the intentions are right though.

If we're looking at it and saying like even Dana White, I know that he's had problems with seeing certain guys in the rankings. Until you see it, though, it's just hard to know, isn't it? Like, what do you make of it? It's just, I don't think that, like, one of the problems with them was just arbitrarily knocking guys out of there who were inactive or just they couldn't get a fight with. That always struck me as strange.

So the bigger problems were honestly in the manipulation of negotiations and things like that. That's really where the bigger problems of the rankings lie, and I don't know if that fixes anything on that front. Let me read to you who the rankings panel. lists are. This should be fun. If I recognize a single name, this would be surprising. Okay. So MMA odds breakers. I do know those guys or the guy who runs that. That's a okay. All right. CFMU 93.3. BursPack.S.E. Fight news. Don't know them. Fight Network used

to be big. I'm not sure what the current state of fight network is. That was once prestigious, but right. I don't know about the current state. Gazeta, Esports. Tava, no, Cherokee Scout, like literally like the Cherokee Nation scout. Burbank leader, I don't can't imagine that's California's largest publication. MMA Weekly, which at one time was one of the most important ones in the sport. It's still active, but it's not quite what it was. Yeah. K-I-O-Z 105.3.

I don't know where the fuck that is. Vladjusport.com. Don't know that. Wrestling Observer. Okay, that's Dave Meltzer. That's big. Okay. Top Turtle podcast.

I mean, what the fuck is that? MMA fight coverage. Boxo Mundial. Now, Kumora.se is big for Sweden, so that's not a small one. MMA soldier. I don't know what the fuck that is. MMA NYTT. I think it's some kind of a European one.

Blood and sweat is one. And then lastly, inside fighting radio. You know, it's hard. It's hard to imagine that. an automated or algorithmic based ranking system could be anything but an improvement. It's just hard

to think that like this. You know what I mean? And then they even point out like then they say this will weed out like, you know, just not based on popularity or opinion. I mean, when you say something like that, you're pointing in the inherent flaws of what's happening right now. With people, some of these may not even pay

attention to MMA anymore. They just might be like, I like, I like Colby or whatever and they just punch them in, right? Like that's, that's absurd. Yeah. What I would say is, I think the only thing for me is not that I cannot imagine that the UFC system, whoever they're using meta or, you know, meta doesn't really have an AI strategy. So I don't, I don't know if that's what this is, but whatever, whatever system that they're going to go by, Chuck, I can imagine very easily that that will yield better results. I think the thing that you always need to understand, though, is not so much about that. It's really that, like, here is yet another lever of control. The UFC already own their own rankings. So in some sense, it's not a big material change. But, like, consider something. Now the process is even more opaque. Like, we don't, we know even less about how whatever system they're going to make, how it mathematically functions. We don't, we don't know the

answer to that. And, you know, could these rankings be manipulated in such a way. And this is true now, obviously, too. You could, you could, you could, I'm not saying it's true. true, but you can, it's true that you could make the same claim, I guess is a better way to put it, that, that, you know, what about if guys are at the end of their deal, what's going to happen to their rankings? You know, are they giving sufficient credit to certain kinds? Are the, is it going to be used for the UFC's purposes when they need it? And of course, we'll just have to wait and see. But any time the UFC brings something where here is like they're interfacing with media, anytime they wall themselves off from it, they tend to

take something off the back end too. Could be small, could be big. We'll have to see. But I think that's kind of what I'm looking for. I think that day to day, Chuck, they'll probably get it right. But when it really matters, are they going to toy with it? I don't know. I wonder in the sense like there's this very human thing, right?

Like if, what do we just have? We had, it was number 11 going against number five in the main event, right? So it's like, and you almost have the swap mentality of this. If you beat number five, you're number five. So like if Edmund Shabazzian, for instance, was not even ranked, but he's going against number four or five, Brendan Allen, like, if he wins, what, he's just number four or five. And I feel like a computerized system that, like, looks at it would be more realistic with

that type of scenario, right? Like, because you just don't, like, take somebody's spot. You don't leapfrog the field because you're giving an opportunity. I mean, those types of things always bothered me because it just seems like there's 10 guys who've been vying, you know, for their spots beforehand. So if it's if it's a little more like, you know, it's a little more fair in terms of like the actual data saying that these, you, you should go from, you know, unranked to number 11. That would make sense, but not to number five.

So I wait to see if that those things kind of make more sense to me through their new rankings. I think the other part for me too is like a guy would lose a title fight, sometimes by finish, sometimes thoroughly. And they'll commonly be like, okay, well, now you're the number one contender. I'm like, how the fuck is that possible? How can you get your, get viciously caowed in a title fight?

And then we're saying to ourselves, that guy is now the most deserving guy of a title shot. What the fuck is that? Because that's not, that's in boxing ostensibly, if you're the number one contender, the idea is that like, you're the most deserving guy who should be next. Right. Yeah, it's like a default, right?

They're defaulting to number one after. It's just, that makes no sense. It just hasn't, but that is a constant of this ranking system we're in. I hate that shit too. So I don't think it's a bad idea per se. Yeah. Devils in the details. Yeah.

The original thing, though, is like, can it help it or like improve it? And it feels like it can't help but improve it. That's the main thing that you take from this. again dude zufa's are ufc o who you ever want to say their timing is like i mean this is self-imposed so this is right right but like we're talking about how they're they're they're really upping the tk o stuff this year because boxing is such a shit show it's like i think their rankings got to a point where they were like okay Cherokee scout what the fuck you know like what is what is this uh and they were like now's a good time to get in because the faith and the people want rankings right

they like rankings, they like seeing a number next to a guy's name and the fighters care about it a lot too. It's got value obviously, right? But also is like it's like this inherent like, you know, you think about this and this is where it separates from other leagues in MMA. It's like you have a roster deep enough to have a top 15 and that's a big deal

right. All of them in their long term contracts. You can, you can it activates a psychological part of the imagination to see a hierarchy and be like, okay, this, this and this. And I feel like that has been a major factor for the rankings. It's just fans can easily understand what they're looking at

and match make on their own, right? The imagination. So it makes sense. It makes sense to have it. But you want it to be reality. I get sick of like where you, like you mentioned, Bala Muhammad was still ranked in the top five, right? We've watched his decline. We're talking about it. He probably shouldn't be in the top five. But it's just that they don't drop him down too far because, oh, he was the champion.

You just, I don't understand that. He should probably be 10 or below, right? Like something like that. It's just, it doesn't makes sense. Well, I'll just say that like, that it's not like fans are going to be like, no, keep it. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. They're not. No one is like, oh, man, well, this, the way it currently works is so good. We would never want a toy with the sanctity of that process. Most people are like, yeah, fuck it. Let the robots pick, you know. I can't even say that that's wrong. I can't even say that that's like a, oh, it's a bad opinion to have. All right, before we talk about the latest and the Dana White versus Eddie Hearn battle.

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All right. Topic number four, let's talk about the latest in the Dana White and Eddie Hearn battle that is seemingly raging on and on as they go back and forth over the future of Tom Aspinall, Chuck. Now, based on how it's going and what has happened, my question, don't answer it yet, but my question would be, does this make you more or less optimistic for Aspinall's future? But let's kind of set the table here. Let's play a few of these clips.

It's going to take us just a second. Bear with us because it's important to set the context. Eddie Hearn kind of had initial comments on Tom and Dana. Let's hear those. They haven't invited him to the White House. He's supposed to be fighting the winner. It's really interesting what's happening in the UFC right now. They've got to be careful.

I'm not going to let Tom Aspen fight for the kind of money that's in his contract to be involved in a fight against Pereira or game for literally 150th of the revenue of that show. Fuck that. I won't let him do it. And he's not going to, you know, it's time. Those UFC fighters stopped being mugs and started to understand that these people are taking advantage of them. They deserve better. Are you saying Tom's going to retire if they come back and say he's getting 300-10?

I'm saying that my advice to Tom Aspen, don't you dare take that fight for the money that's in your contract? You are one of the biggest stars in UFC. Everybody will be sick to their stomach about the money that Tom Aspen was supposed to get for that kind of fight. You don't need that. You nearly lost your eyesight. You want to go back and fight for virtually nothing. It's outrageous. And I will not.

I'll do everything I can to not allow it. Now, Eddie had a couple of responses. Let's play the first one where he's like, oh, Dana needs to release Tom Aspinall. Here's Dana's response to that. Eddie Hearns been talking again this week. He says he won't let Tom Aspinall fight under the current terms of his UFC contract.

He signed a management contract with him. What's your response to that? You said they want him released, right? You release Bam Rodriguez then. sounds pretty stupid, doesn't it? Congratulations again, Eddie. You sounds stupid again. Okay.

Hold on. We're almost done. He also had something to say about the Connor Ben situation about guys, you should be happy that they get paid more. Here's what he said. Eddie, who apparently, you know,

Ben was his best friend. Eddie's been crying, literally crying for weeks. Oh, my best friend. And he didn't even want to pay him, but he wants to pay my guy. he could have paid his best friend and they could have remained best friends. Is there any update with the bank?

Eddie's full of a lot of shit. You know it. I know it. You know it. We all know it. I don't disagree with that, by the way. No. That's a general observation.

So is the, that's like the, you know, the pot calling the kettle black, whatever. I know, it's like, dude,

every time I do media, someone's like, you know, Dana White says so and so. And I'm like, guys, you know he promotes fights for a living. Yes?

Like, and Eddie Hearn too, you know? Okay, last thing, here's Eddie's response to all of that. He basically said Eddie Hunts full of shit. He cares more, he cares about aspirin. I'm paraphrasing a little bit now because my journalistic skills,

he's not great. He cares more about getting aspirinol paid, but he didn't care about Conner Ben getting paid. That was kind of his words. I'll paraphrase that for the fucking Maris Piper Ed and tell him, basically, when Connor Ben win, he said he should be happy for Conor Ben, because we should want the fighters to get as much money as possible.

but you don't want Tom Aspinall to get as much money as possible. You want to rob Tom Aspinall. That's what you want to do. You want to give Tom Aspinall around one-fifth of the revenue because you're an absolute disgrace to UFC fires. And all you're worried about consistently is the bottom line. So there's nothing to do with wanting Conner Ben to get paid. The only gripe I have with Connor Ben is how he approached the situation.

I'm very happy for fighters to get paid. And if he's happy for fighters to get paid, then let's have a conversation about Tom Aspinall. But no one ever questions anything about, you know, I mean, you all sit there like plums and go, oh, Dana, oh, yeah, your body of work's unbelievable. What is the fucking body of work? Absolutely nothing. Oh, you've done twice as many shows, Dana as everyone else, have you?

Oh, gobble, gobble, oh, unbelievable. No, like, it's just lies. Lies, lies, lies, lies, lies. Okay. That's it for clips. I promise we're all done with that. Pride is like love. You feel it in your heart. IR. Radio, Canada's number one streaming app for radio and podcasts, including IHart Pride Canada, your favorite hits and must have party bangers, plus

personalized and curated playlists like back in the day pride. Come together, celebrate love. Take pride with you anytime, anywhere. Just ask your smart speaker to play IHart Pride Canada. Stream us on your phone or listen now at iHartRadio.ca. hearing all of this how do you feel about Tom Aspinall's place in this company and frankly his future with it? First of all, when's the last time you've heard somebody just publicly go at Dana? Like in terms of like a guy who's a manager or like a rival, the rivals, yes, but like this is a guy that has to, you know, he's been thrust into the situation on two levels here. One that Dana coming into boxing with super boxing and doing all that. then also like becoming the manager of Tom Aspenol, now you're dealing with, you know, Dana's

brass. You're dealing with the UFC on a negotiation level. But have you ever seen anybody go at Dana like this publicly back and forth? I couldn't recall seeing something like this, you know? I mean, he, so I mean, I don't know. Like, yeah. I mean, there's been there's been people who've gone back and forth with so many people. I agree, it's been a while. But like, whether it's Stitch Duran, Gary Shaw, Greg Jackson. True, but I'm saying, like, a person that you're basically, like most people who have to deal with

UFC in any kind of business way, where they're trying to get their fighter paid or whatever it is, you just don't see it. And so, like, this is, I feel like we're in a position that's just kind of, it's brand new. And obviously, you're dealing with a guy who plays a promoter game, too. Like, you're dealing with a guy who's a promoter himself, and

he sees through certain things. And, you know, also getting out in front of narratives is part of what his gig is. It's a lot going on, but I will say that Tom, you're asking if this is going to affect Tom as well. I can't help but think it's going to. I can't help but think it's going to.

And this is just the way it plays out. If we didn't have a precedent, like with Francis and Ghanu, for instance, where you have a heavyweight champion and there's this big negotiation, and then there's this acrimony, and he's gone, and there's a lingering acrimony

that's been going on with this. Then you have John Jones, who follows some kind of similar things, thing where at first it was all love and batting eyes, but then it becomes something else and there's a money issue and respect issue. And now there's acrimony there. If we didn't see these things, I wouldn't, maybe you wouldn't believe, like you'd think they just work it out. But this feels to me like it's just setting up to reach an impasse and how that plays out in a division that's already gone through so many digressions from the like the kind of lineal

championship that's gone through so many rabbit holes, right? Like it's just going, it's going to get a lot worse than it gets better. I'm afraid. What do you think about it? This is a unique situation in the in the sense of Eddie Hearn though, you know, kind of getting involved who's like a who's going to, who's very stubborn in what he wants to do too, right? Like that that's why it feels like it's heading towards an impasse. I mean, I just want to say one thing. I find it crazy that if you look at all the times the UFC has really gotten sideways with their top stars, this is not universally true by any stretch of imagination, but it often happens at heavyweight. Chuck. Yeah. We'd go back to the Randy Couture days, but look, they got sideways with

Tom Aspinall, current champ. They got sideways with John Jones at the end here. Again, I'm not saying that like, that's all UFC's fault. That's not what I'm saying. Right. They got sideways with them. That was the previous champion. Then they got sideways with Francis, the other previous champion back to back to back. And then that doesn't count the long history of people at heavyweight that they've gotten. It's just a strange fact that there's something about the UFC heavyweight division that seems to have friction with the UFC in ways that maybe the other divisions don't have as much. Putting that aside, I mean, I just think people need to ask themselves what they, first of all, I would say, you have to ask yourself what you guys want here.

Because I see so many, you go in the mentions of Malki Kau, or you go in the mentions of Ali Abdel-Aziz, you just hear a lot of complaints in there about like, oh, you should do more for your fighters, you should do more, Jason House or something, you know, you should do more for your fighters. And I think a lot of people feel like that is true, that the existing managerial class in MMA is not up to task. But it's like, well, then this guy comes along and he is adversarial. And you're like, oh, no, no, no, no. You got, Eddie needs to relent immediately because this will be bad for Tom.

Well, which is it? Which is it? Do we need to lay down all the time? Or do we need to have conflict all the time? I mean, which the, there's a narrative about this that doesn't set it up. However, what I will say is, to me, I don't advocate laying down. I don't advocate for managers becoming brokers. But I think one thing that we all have to realize is these guys lay down because they know they don't have much leverage.

They don't have much leverage. And if the world were different, Chuck, and for whatever reason, we were more in a boxing-like environment where the managers would have potentially significant, say, I think you'd see them exercise it. I mean, the point I'm trying to make is part of the issues with the managerial class are the structural issues within the sport. itself and how the managerial class operates to me is a downstream consequence of the way in which the sport itself is structured. Yeah. And Eddie's trying to buck that trend. I'll just say this.

I'll believe it when I see it when it's successful. The problem is that how often does Dana, especially when there's a public dispute, how often does he want to take an L? Like a public L because you think he's going to take an L? He wants to be done. I know. That's what I'm saying. So this approach, though novel in its weird way, and like you're going to watch it and people, I mean, this becomes the drama within the drama, right? Like, we're going to pay attention to this.

The Dana, once he digs in, he just won't, he does not want to take the public else. So for him to, you know, regardless if it's one-fifteenth of the revenue or whatever that, whatever Eddie is saying that they won't take that fight for, I don't see Dana White coming on, especially once you kind of rub them the wrong way. like this is I just don't see him coming off of that and that's why I just I don't really see a resolution I don't really this is not a happy thing if you're trying to find resolution in the in the if you want to see Tom Aspinall fight the winner of gone versus Pereiro right like I feel like we're going to have a lot of drama before then but I don't think that Dana is going to come come off of whatever you know whatever the contract says at this point do you I feel like when they it's a UFC idea a lot of times when they restructure a contract. It's not from the pressure, at least not public pressure from managers. Well, it's like, okay, let's game this out. Let's game this out. They set a series of demands, and we know UFC doesn't really budge on that, but let's say, no, listen, it's Tom. It's a heavyweight champion. We'll budge a little bit, which I've heard that they can do time to time. That's probably not going to be enough for Eddie, and so they're going to just say, no. So what

choices does the UFC have here? If people think, and if Eddie, Eddie, if someone sends us to Eddie, Eddie, if you are under the impression that they won't exercise the nuclear option immediately, you are very mistaken. They will exercise it if they have to. They don't care. And honestly, you might say,

oh, well, then that would be bad for their product. And the fans would revolt. No, they wouldn't. No, they won't. They will not revolt. They absolutely will not revolt over Tom Aspinall. And in fact, the kind of tenor of response I've seen from online fans is that they are fatigued with his absence

and they are fatigued with the way he has handled it and that's not me to say that that that view is correct merely Chuck that it is observable in the world that the fans feel this way so like UFC knows all of this they don't want to lose Tom Aspinall I'm sure that they would make an effort

to not lose him or you know get even more sideways with him but if you force their hand Chuck they have so much leverage they could cut him completely from the organization and not think twice about it and the fans they'll bellyache about the state of heavyweight but they'll probably do that anyway trust me they will i've seen them do it they will do it yeah i just with i just i just i feel like it's really just because we've seen this kind of battle not not quite exactly the same but we've seen these heavy

weights before. And if you're a fan of just wanting to get the best heavyweight fight, dude, it just feels like we have the biggest obstacles ever. Like they have never been able to I mean, outside of like cane and like JDS and a couple of fights, like you just never get the best possible heavyweight fight

in the O.C. It's like it's just, it feels like it's forever out of reach and this just feels like we're just getting started with the, with the latest. Do you think it's at all possible? I guess so Tom Aspinall because there's some spite there, right? Bringing and Eddie Hearn.

Obviously, he is not feeling the love from the UFC and all of that. But do you see a situation where at some point he might just be like, well, Eddie's not the right guy to be negotiating for me? Like, you know what I mean? If it's like one of those things where he's ready or something and that basically he would part ways with Eddie before he would burn the bridge with the UFC? I don't know what Tom would do. Yeah.

It's hard to tell. He seems like he sometimes has UFC in a good spot, but he also seems very, very disgruntled with them at other times. So I don't know, man. I just, you know, I was reading one time this, where was this, Chuck? I mean, I think I was reading a paper from a white paper from the Institute of War. I could be wrong about that. This was a few years ago.

But in it, the big thing I took away from it was that they were talking about like warfare tactics, particularly with artillery. And they were saying that, although this was actually not artillery, but the paper focused on that. But the point I'm trying to make is one of the things that they found was that in warfare, the Russians, they are, they think a nuclear volley is an acceptable risk. Like, they're okay with that. And it's like, this is what I want to ask Eddie.

Eddie, do you think a nuclear volley is an acceptable risk? because I guarantee you the UFC does. You know what I mean? Yeah. All these boxing guys do, they just don't know who they're dealing. I know. That's really the thing, what it comes down to. They just have no clue.

You have no clue how powerful they are and how far they'll go to win. You know, it's just, it's just crazy to me. Anyway, they can get pretty low down in the limbo. You know what I mean? There's no, there is no road low enough that they're not willing to take. You know, they'll take. Yeah. And they're clever. You know what I mean? And they're patient, too. Like they'll wait for the right time. All right. There, there were the adversaries. I'll put it that way. All right. Topic number five. Chuck, what else can I say is what everyone's talking about inside the MMA world and out? UFC Fight Week is upon us. Now we already touched on the lawsuit, which I think is, you know, what I'm told anyway is a long shot. We'll put that aside. Weather forecast. I just checked it. Right. And again, we're still a week away. So, you know, who knows. But for right now, it's sunny. And in fact, you know, low 80. actually is fucking prima for for DC in June.

So as long as they can tame the bug stuff, Chuck, that will be all right. My question, my question for you is as follows. You know, I'll just say in my two decades covering the sport, I cannot recall a fight week. And I know we're just getting started,

but like even before fight week, I cannot recall anything quite like this. As we head into this, frankly, a historic week for the sport, what stands out to you the most about the event already? And what storyline related to the, the fights or maybe even just the event itself, do you kind of have your eye on the most? God. And you know, this is tough. To me, it's like a very abstract. It's almost like I don't know

what to expect in this. Do you? I mean, I feel like it's one of those things that I'm like, usually you have a very good idea. Even when they're doing the sphere, it was like I had a fairly good idea of what was going to happen, right? Like you could, you could imagine sort of the presentation they were going to go through and all this. I just don't know, man. It strikes me almost like when you are credentialed to go to like South by Southwest or something where you're going to like a you know like a festival where there's many components to this festival and there's like this they send out kind of like a you know a calendar of all the different things going on and each one of them has its own question marks attached to it you know I think that they're doing the

press conference at the Lincoln Memorial is that right like they're they're having like the actual press conference there and if you think about the press conferences of recent times they're kind of these gong shows. They're like, they're just not what they used to be because there's no real media presence. There will be media presence for this. So then that becomes like a bigger media presence than ever, probably for an event.

And so how does that play out? To me, it's like, it's all within those strange, the strangeness of the details. Does it feel like a desecration? Like you were mentioning, you know, what was the word you used? You were saying that they were worried about solemn anonymity? Is that what you said?

Yeah, I mean, so one of the arguments is you're only, so by law, by law. Yes. You're only allowed to have events at the Lincoln Memorial that are related to Lincoln's birthday or some other kind of national event. You're not allowed to do any kind of for-profit stuff, any kind of, anything unrelated that you're not allowed to do. And one of the arguments that is put forward in the lawsuit is that actually on top of it, like, this is why there's no bands that like perform near the World War II Memorial or the

Vietnam Memorial. These are solemn places where you, I mean, if you've never seen that, for example, Chuck, have you ever been to the Vietnam Memorial? Yes, I've been there. So if you've never been there, it's like a part of it is this wall with all the names of people who died. And what they say in the lawsuit is like playing. Yeah. Playing loud music next to a place of hallowed solemnity is offensive to some. Again, I'm just putting out what it says in the lawsuit. These are the things though, right? Like is it going to feel like, is it going to feel like that somehow, something that stood so long and been protected that long is violated. You know, to me, that's the kind of stuff I'm most intrigued by. Regardless of what you think of the president or, you know, the administration, it's like the things that have been in place for all these 250 years, you know, like you think about all that

and, and all of that sort of thing. I just, it's, it's almost like, how would the UFC uphold itself, I guess, in the face of all these things? And honestly, under probably bigger screfer. I would think bigger scrutiny than they've ever had. In terms of like the types of media from what I've been told, you know, they have like almost a Super Bowl type press row or whatever that they're

that they're going to have. Did you hear anything about this? Like they're going to have a full on press row. I mean, you feel like it's going to be eyeballs on this sport like that has never been there before. And I'm like, I guess it's within those details is the story to me. I'm like,

what does all of that mean? I don't know yet. Yeah. I'll say for me, you know, one thing that I've, to your point, it's like if there's a big dichotomy between the feeling inside the, it's weird, dude, it's weird to be a guy who covers M.A. Who's a longtime D.C. resident because all my fucking neighbors are super upset. And everyone I know in M.A is super excited. You know what I mean? It's really crazy.

It's really kind of crazy. So that's what that's kind of one thing I'm sort of focusing on here is like, I think, I think, think so i've so i've okay here's the big story for me uh they mentioned this in the lawsuit too but it's a sort of a side point which is that mark shapiro the chief operating officer i believe of tk o had said that this is going to be an unprecedented opportunity to get earned uh earned media for folks who don't know the difference between earned and unearned media um or unearned i should say and paid rather paid is just what you imagine you're paying for ads you're paying for you know fly people out to cover your shit whatever you're paying for you're paying for

media. Earned is when like the media calls you up and is like, hey, we want to talk to you for free. Like, we're not going to ask anything. You know, and obviously the Super Bowl gets, you know, just a fucking metric ton of earned media. I've never seen earned media interest in a UFC event like this in my life. I've never seen it. Not even for Connor. Not even for, now maybe Mayweather Pachial was bigger, right? In terms of earned media response. Right. No, I got you. I got you. But like this is unusual, but here's the thing, Chuck. There's two kind of weird factors to it. One is that a lot of people have never encountered UFC before.

This might be the first time. They don't even know anything about the fights. They just know there's an event. What does that mean for them sticking around? Couldn't tell you. I guess we'll have to wait and see. And I think the other thing that's kind of interesting too is I'm getting so many questions from people being like, you know, and we don't have to go into it,

but I just want to point it out. I get a lot of questions for people being like, hey, is this the UFC kind of declaring that they're a partisan, politically partisan organization to which I'm like, were you not around in 2021? Like, what are we?

You know, like, you're a late. This is more like the final boss of a process that's been in play for years, literally years at this point. I think that's kind of interesting. On the fight side, though, Chuck, I will say, I just feel like the Poetan fight here

against Gons. is I know people are shitting on it because there's not a real title on the line. And, you know, would it have been better to get Poetan John Jones? I think the fan base probably would have said yes. Sure. Would it have been better to get Poetan versus Aspinall? I think the fan base would have said yes. Nevertheless, I think of all the, I mean, dude, I think their main event is kind of academic, to be honest with you.

But like, that co-main, I think that co-main is fucking legit. I love that fight. I love it too, and I think that Cyril Gond kind of having the fight he did, even though it didn't last very long against Aspinall where he's holding his own and maybe even dictating terms, is why we do this. Because if it looked like Aspinall was kind of wiping up the floor with him, we probably wouldn't be saying this stuff because Gone has dropped the ball in other big situations. And the John Jones one always comes to mind because you do that whole thing of like, did Jones look really good? or did gone just not show up for that fight? It was just too easy for John Jones. And if you're looking at that version of gone,

you would have been like a little bit, you know, different. But I think just the little bit that he was doing against Aspinall, the little bit we've seen is why we kind of feel this way, right? Like, and he's been in big spots. So it feels to me like he's a very live. I don't know what the odds are on this, but it feels to me like he's a very live dog. Like you can imagine the scenarios where he gets this done, right?

This isn't a slam dunk for purer. I know some people think it is. They're trying to set them up because they don't think it to go to the ground or anything like that. Oh, it's a pickum is what Long Island says. But that's, that's even better. You know what I mean? That's exactly what you want in that situation is. You don't really know what's going to happen there.

How are you feeling about viewership? I mean, here is my general view, Chuck. Again, very, very general. There's no way that this number is not huge. Now, what does that mean? Is it, does it beat the MVP card? does it does it reach 30 million

like Dana White was talking Super Bowl numbers just for everyone's edification that's over a hundred million people are they going to get that

on a app that's only in 70 million plus homes I don't know what the answer so if someone asked me Chuck oh how big is the viewership going to be there's no doubt

whatever number it's going to be is going to be huge but I but I don't know I don't know what it's going to look like I mean it falls straight back into the thing we're talking about not knowing on so many levels of different things. Now, do we have any clarity, I guess, of the CBS portion? Is there no portion of this fight that's

being shown on CBS? I keep trying to look this stuff up. Yes. And it's not really... Let me do something here while you asked that. Yeah, because I mean... My understanding is no, but let me double check that. And can I also just like... One other thing, one other aspect, you're saying, like, what the storyline? What's the most intriguing thing? Is this another watershed? moment for the UFC because we've seen them have several. If you've covered it pre tough, right, like all the way to now. And then you get the ultimate fighter, which obviously they point to about saving the business going on free TV, having that big Bonner, Griffin fight, and all of a sudden they had a viable product that people were interested in,

humanized everywhere. That was the first big one. I always look at it like, and then obviously you had the McGregor and Rousey kind of, you know, moment in that boom, that boom period before the sale. And then you go into the pandemic, which they push, the envelope, right? They said, we're going to push chips all in, we're going to do it when nobody else is doing it. We're going to take a lot of criticism for this, but it ended up maybe being the stroke of genius for the O.C.

Because they gained a ton of fans. And is this the watershed moment again? Where it's like, they come out of this and they gain a ton of fans. That's one of those other questions that I'm like, you know, I guess is lingering in the air. And if they do, obviously, Paramount Plus and all of the things going on around that,

as you're looking this up is, that's how it would benefit it, right? And the stretch is that suddenly the audience grew, you know, to some big proportion just for one event. And I feel like the UFC has done this masterfully over the years. Which one event would you say grew their fan base? One event? Man, that's a great question. Because it's like, I mean, obviously the tough finale was the big one.

But like if you're talking about because the pandemic was more of like a period, right? Now, I just remember everybody who didn't, there were so many people who didn't pay attention at that time that suddenly did. A lot of them were gamblers. I would hear all these people like, hey, who's going to win this? Give me some insight under this and this and this. And it was because there was nothing else to do. So it wasn't one individual fight.

But maybe would you say like the Diaz McGregor or something like that? I felt like there was a ton at that time, like a ton of outside presence kind of covering the sport coming in. See, that's the weird part about it. Maybe rousy. I don't know. Yeah, they're going to get a bunch of eyeballs. But like, I've been playing this kind of test with everyone. And I'm like, okay, what is the biggest fight?

you ever attended. What's the biggest thing that you can remember the fight game? And everyone will say, oh, Mayweather Packia or, you know, McGregor or, Rebecca Madoff. But you're leading with Star Power. You're leading with names, you know, and this is not that. Like, dude, I'll get questions. I did CNN this morning. And the last question was like, is this card any good? You know what I mean? That's like, that was the last one they asked. It does seem to be really secondary to everything, doesn't it? Like super secondary. So it's like, I can't tell if those people are about, to take the red pill or if those people are just like, you know, they're going to check in for 20 minutes, hate watch it or, you know, whatever and then just be, I have no fucking idea. I don't either,

man, because the normal methods of magnetism, Rousie, Lesnar, McGregor, star power, that's not, that's not this one. It's a completely different vibe. It's just, it's so unique for everything. Long Island, what would you say is like a vibe or a thing you're paying attention to in Fight Week that really stands out to you about this event? I just wanted to point out, not that I think they're on the level of any of the stars you just mentioned, but isn't like Ilya and Poetan arguably the stars of today? Like they are putting out those big names. Bro, no one is watching this for them.

I don't know, maybe some people. I will say one of the guys- In our bubble? Yes, but who cares about that? We're talking about outside. How many articles in, forget political media, in sports media, have you seen about the fighters? Zero. Yeah.

Also, I want to point out, I would. with someone who's active he's in the army and I was like oh is everyone talking about the white house card and he's like what's the white house card he had no idea that's hilarious happening he's like no one's even mentioning it I was like really that's crazy that's weird that's very surprising I'm hearing about it from people who pay no attention to the sport I mean even my dad dude my dad doesn't ask me shit about this business and he was like is there a white house fight are you going my I have family that asked me like if if when they were hey there's going to be UFC at the White House, did they get permission to do that?

Like, did they, the White House give them permission? They thought it was a gorilla, you know, like, you see was going to just try to go in there and, like, do a banksy or something. Guns drawn on secret service. We're putting up a motherfucking crane, you know? I don't know. Anyway, this will be one to pay attention to a very, very unique one. You won't see it quite like this, maybe ever again.

So consider that for what it is worth. Okay, that is it for our top five topics. but now it's when you guys get to ask us questions. It's time for DMs from dogs. All righty then. Let's get right into it. Chuck from at Spice of Kalinin. Am I saying that right?

How many years? How many years does America have left? You got a little bit of the answer. You got a beat up one? I think we are past, like so it's like the point of no return. A 250, we're like, you know, I don't think it goes another 250. How about you?

What do you think? I saw this French movie called, I'm going to butcher it. Laan, it's spelled L-A as the article and then H-A-I-N-E. I don't know how to pronounce. Okay. It means hate, apparently. Okay. And it was just like this gritty-ass black and white movie that was made in the 90s.

It's actually a good-ass movie. If you've never seen it. It's real funny. I've got to watch this. It's in the Criterion Collection, which is how I found it. Okay. Anyway, in it, they tell this sort of joke about like a guy who jumps off of an architect who jumps off of a roof. And every floor as he's falling, he can look inside each of the floor. And he's like, oh, it looks nice in there. Everything looks great. Everything looks great. Everything looks great. And then you splatter on the ground. Like, in other words, sort of this contrast, like everything's looking great. Everything's looking great.

And then you turn into hamburger on the pavement. We're in the It's Looking Great stage. That's what I think. That's a good way of saying it. I don't know when we're going to turn into hamburger, Chuck, but just enjoy the views for now. All right. From Kasim Husseini, there are reports that there will be,

no, that there will be a 65% chance of rain during the event. If true, how disastrous would rescheduling be logistically, practically for weight-cutting fighters. Can I tell you what I have heard? Okay. And I've not verified this. So this is not me reporting anything. Okay?

I am not reporting. I am literally rumor-mongering, okay? That's the way I live. I like rumor-mongering. Go ahead. Yeah. What I've heard is if need be, they could push it to Monday. I don't think that they want to do that, but they, in theory, they could.

They could just wait it out. another day. Now, if you look at the... That feels like that would be the truth, right? Like that you would just say, like, we have a plan. If the weather's bad, we'd do it the next day. That makes sense. I mean, boxing used to do this all the time.

In the mid-20th century, they would just back up events by what? Because they had so many outdoor events, they're just back it up by a day or two, you know? So if you look at the current forecast for Sunday, 614, they've got an acqueweather, they've got a high of 92 with a low of 71. and an 18% chance of rain. If you zoom in on when that rain could show up, it tends to be a little bit earlier in the day, not later. Now, again, this could all change.

You don't really get a good forecast until about 48 hours out. But right now, I don't think it's a big deal. Now, the weird part, though, Chuck, is if they have to move it, where would they move it? Now, that's the big problem because the Capital One arena, which is the facility that they've used before. I mean, I reached out to monumental sports. No one grabbed the date, but it doesn't matter anyway

because there's renovations going on. Like they're literally in the middle of renovating the facility. If you look at the calendar, nothing is even available until like September because it's just all shut down. So there's other venues you could go to, but they only see about 4 to 5,000 people anyway, either Eagle Bank Arena or the Care First Arena.

And these are, I don't think Trump wants go to the neighborhood where the care first arena is. I'm just being honest with you. You know what I mean? So like, it's, I'm not saying it's all or nothing on Sunday, Chuck, like they need, they need Sunday to go well, you know?

Yeah. And honestly, like this whole effort, like, all the money they've spent to just all of a sudden kick it down the road to some, you know. To the WMBA arena. That would just be tragic. That would be like, yo, we spent how much for what the fuck, you know? I know.

All right, but I don't think it's going to come to that. So, all right. Three, at Michael Saccula. Again, I could be saying that like a complete asshole. My eight-year-old daughter asked me if there were any women fighting at the White House, and I had to tell her no, is not having any women's fight on this card, possibly the biggest card ever. A huge miss. Chuck, I'll pitch it to you, but I'll just add a little something.

I am very surprised. I get asked about no women being on the card way more than I thought I would. what's happening there? I don't know if it was just, I don't think it was like a, you tell me, I don't think that it was just an effort. Like I don't think,

you know, like there are no Russians on the card. I don't think that they were like, we just want no, we don't want women on the card. I don't think it was that. I think if Kayla Harrison were available to have fought against

Amanda Nunes, that fight would be on this card. So in that sense, I'm like, it just feels like, it just worked out this way. But it feels, maybe just because they, if you look,

do they have somebody that would have fit the bill of what they were looking at? I think they tried to get fights that would deliver with people with names and that sort of thing. And maybe they just could not figure out that women's pairing that would kind of deliver on the same vein. What do you think of? I don't think it was a deliberate thing. I think it was just they didn't have anybody that would fit it. Yeah, I think Dana White said that he actually tried and the one that they were looking at, it fizzled for whatever reason.

You know, this is kind of a tough conversation because I'm not saying anything to you or to the audience that they didn't already know, but I did explain, actually CNN asked about this this morning. And what I told them was, one of the unfortunate realities is just that the women's game has declined. And it's just a lot harder to find meaningful matchups or big stars that could, you know, I'm not saying that there's not a fight you couldn't.

Like, you could easily take off Kyle Dawkins and Booneckle, right? That doesn't need to be on this card. But, you know, to your point, Chuck, like it's not so easy anymore to find, a good matchup that would fit that bill. I'm not saying they couldn't have done it, but I sort of get

why it's not on there, you know? Well, I mean, if you put like, you know, a couple, if you put a women's fight that basically is a tactical fight, it goes the full three rounds, it's 30, 27. I mean, it's just, we talk about this, why are certain fights on cards

anyway, you would definitely have that conversation. You'd be like, why was this fight on the White House card, you know? And I, that, it's, it's tougher than it seems sometimes to be like, we can guarantee there's going to be action or whatever they're trying to get here. And I feel like that's what that went into this. They got people they thought would accommodate each other to put on good fights first and foremost.

So it's a tough thing to do. Experience you and a pal in Montreal and Oceaga with four nights at residents in downtown Montreal flights from Porter Airlines to weekend gold tickets and $1,000 of cash. Please love me. Lord, Zara Larson, Dame Grey, Somber, 21 pilots, and more download iHeart radio listen to i heart new music for 10 minutes and enter to win osiaga 2026 every day you listen is another chance to win from eric bolden he writes due to the weird circumstances of fighting outside and in the heat uh in such an odd setting do you think the fighters will be more

or less aggressive early on chuck what do you think god i had not really thought of that what do you think the temperature is going to become like so if it's 92's you're high what is it, maybe mid-80s or something by the time? Yeah, it'll be low to mid-80s by about fight time. That's hot. Well, then under the lights, too. So now we're adding another degree of heat. I think there's a lot of guys on this that are aggressive anyway.

I think that they've got aggressive attitudes that may play in. But I feel like a lot of you really go to go down the card, you're like, I feel like first rounds are going to be like the busier rounds in every single fight. except for the co-main. That's the one that I could see dragging out. That's the one that's true. That is true. Because Gone just might do it that way.

You know what I mean? That is true. But yeah, I think that's a good point, Chuck. Like a lot of these guys tend to kind of get after it, especially like Steve Garcia and Diego Lopez, like that kind of fight. Right, right.

But it's interesting. This is why I'm dude, like when you begin to tinker with variables, the ways in which that extends, it goes often much further than you give it, initial credit for. When was the last time the UFC did an outdoor event? Do you recall?

Was it one of the fight for the troops was outdoors, right? Even those, they were in covered hangers. They were in covered hangers. You know, you still, there's no chance of rain, for example. Yeah. And probably less bugs, too. Yeah. Strange.

All right. Last but not least from Fitman 720. What would have to happen for you to praise the outcome of the event as a whole? You want to go first? I mean, they're kind of asking, I think this is more directed at me than you, but you can take it first. That's a great question because I'm not sure in what way that I would naturally hate on it either. Like, you know what I mean? Like when it's a novelty, it's very hard.

And I say novelty, meaning they're at a place that they normally wouldn't do it and makeshift kind of situation. But it's not set up like MVP, for instance, right? Like where you kind of know that you're going to want to scrub off, what are you just, watched to an extent, you know, like you watch some of these things that Jake Paul fights or whatever. Like there's some stench to it heading in, but the curiosity carries you and then you're like, ah, should have known better. I don't really feel like it has that. I mean, I feel like if the fights deliver and honestly, if they don't, if they're not awarding, you know, belts to the to Trump or like having somebody jump out of a cake or anything like that, I feel like the political side

of it, maybe they, you know, if they steer it off of that enough, you know what I mean, and try to make it more of a tribute, there's a possibility, you know, that you come out of this and you're like, hey, man, I don't know how that could have went better, you know, in that situation. Yeah. I mean, if they get good weather, relatively speaking, if they get good results, relatively speaking, and if they get a big number, relatively speaking, I think certainly with inside the MMA bubble, most people are going to be pretty happy with that, right? I mean, that seems, you know, and they've got a good chance of doing all of those things. You know, I don't think people have really misunderstood what I,

have an issue with Chuck. They've really got it. They've really got it completely backwards. What they think, okay, if you notice what people who, let's say, are even MMA fans and they really hate, there's a political nature. They don't want this event to take place. If you notice what they're saying, it's not at all

what I'm saying. They're focused on like, oh, they're turning the White House grounds into a circus show and it looks like idiocracy or some other kind of complaint about the visual nature of it or you know something to be said about like you know should this be happening on white house

grounds there's a little bit of that kind of baked into some of this too that's really not my problem my problem i don't have a problem with the fights as such chuck it's not my issue at all my issue is that this event represents the final and complete union between the ufc and the trump administration and my real big issue has nothing to do with sunday june 14th again this is just I go back to these questions I get when I do mainstream media, Chuck, and it's like, people like, oh, is this tacky to have on the White House grounds? I'm like, guys, they can fix this shit when it's done. You know, if you don't think things like this should be happening on hollowed American institutions,

that's a conversation we can have. Right, right. But the lawn can be fixed. This is not my problem. My problem is that there was a political contribution that the UFC made in helping to return this guy to power. and I don't know if people have noticed, he has set the fucking world on fire, and I think that's really, really bad.

My argument is about that. This event serves as a representation to help people understand that union, but I'm not like bummed out. That's like big fights. That's like the last thing I'm worried about. I wanted to say, are you guys worried about the pacing at all?

Good question. Like, I feel like this is going to go longer than usual. Okay, let's talk about this. Let's talk about this. I'm so glad you asked this. Chuck, the event is set to start at 8 p.m. East. Okay. Now, the way it normally goes is you can roughly factor in about an hour,

sorry, half hour per three round fight. Right. Now, there's definitely going to be some hoop, hoopla, and hoot and nanny at the beginning. So let's just bake in 20 minutes of, look where we are, isn't this great, the whole nine yards. So then you're average. about, you know, what do they do?

For five fights, they do about three hours, right? Mm-hmm. That leaves you at least another hour. So I think that this goes at least until midnight. They're saying, oh, man. The presser is supposed to start at 12.15 p.m. or a.m., I guess. Technically Monday morning. I think it's going to, I think you're looking at a four to a four and a half hour broadcast.

Is there a curfew at all for this, like, outdoor event? There might be a curfew in terms of when the metro stops running. I don't know if the city has agreed to open it. And I'm going to add something to. Folks, if you're going to this event, do not fucking Uber. They're closing the memorial bridge on the other side of Constitution. Chuck, Constitution Avenue, put the camera on me. I'm going to help you donks out.

Constitution Avenue is going to be a fucking parking lot. If you take an Uber there, you do so at. your own financial peril. Don't do it. You want my number one pick, Chuck, my number. Oh, this is for you, too. Please. Yes. If you haven't done it already, get a Lyme account, L-I-M-E, like the fruit, Lyme. This is to rent scooters and bikes all over town. Take the metro to someplace nearby and then scooter the final rest of the way. They have dedicated bike lanes on 15th Street. You can just ride it all the way down from there. Do not fucking Uber. I am promising

you, you will live to regret. Oh, God. What a nightmare. I don't want to even contemplate that. But yeah, dude, here's the thing. 1215, the metro on Sunday is typically closed. So I don't know what they're going to. It's all those logistics too. Again, they just kind of factor into this whole thing. I don't know

if you guys have gone to like an outdoor concert at like a baseball stadium, but they'll keep it open late. No, well, like city field. They have like a midnight curfew. The concert has to end by midnight. Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah, so I was curious if the White House had something similar or if it's just like a free for a sometimes for like a big

so have you ever been to Nats Park Chuck? I've never been there no so it's right by the metro like it's like the metro is like right right down the street and so what they'll sometimes do if it's like a big playoff game they'll open it extra hours you know I don't know if they're going to do that here

yeah and honestly the nearest metro is a little bit of a walk too so I do think you're right about the length of it because they said something along the lines of kind of telling the tale of America, you know, in between. And like you, it's just like the sphere, if you remember, their pacing was a lot, a lot different because they were doing the same thing for Mexico, right? Mexican Pride Warriors. And they were, they'd have these long presentations in between.

So if it's anything like that, the pacing's going to be fairly drastically different. Yeah, fairly brutal. Yeah. All right. That is it for our top five. Now we move into when you guys get to roast us or make fun of the show or even yourself sometimes. We'll take any of the above. This is where you can email us, Morning Kombat at gmail.com. This is what we call fan subs. You've got mail. Viewer. All right, there you have it.

Chuck, you know, the best one each month. We give a signed poster. So let's start. We have John McLean. He says Chuck needs to be the new Blue Chew ambassadors. Blue Chew like a dick pill? Is that right? I don't know.

Dickville? All right, let's see it. What makes Blue Chew gold the best? Gold supports blood flow and long lasting performance. Yadong kind of showed up. The goal goes further. Supporting arousal. I thought Yadong came in there.

The people who watch the show, Chuck, they're five. They're five years old. And I love every one of them. Yeah. That's great. That's good, man. All right. From Jonas, we got two memes.

Let's see what we have here. Here's me giving a lecture, apparently. And it says, a lot of you donks don't understand that Rousey was a juggernaut. in this male sport. I remember seeing little girls going to UFC events like they were watching a Korean boy band or something. Yes, it's a point I have made previously. It's hard to appreciate now, Chuck, because A, I sound like a boomer

and B, I don't think dudes anymore. I guess young guys don't care about fucking chicks, which is really different than my generation, but they don't care for this point very much. I don't know what you're supposed to do, though. If you're trying to tell the truth of what happened, it's like you're going to sound like a boy. Like, this is the way it happened. It's not like it's not like we're making it up. I know it's like, dude, things didn't

used to be this way. I know. They mean, you know, it's worth acknowledging the change, but okay, people hate that. Next. What the fuck is this? Oh, wait. Yeah. Is this the little girl that I'm referencing at the fights? Is that the joke? Yeah, and he's like a Korean

boy, like he's seeing a Korean boy. With the little backpack. That is, that Rousey looks fucking yoke too in that shit, by the way. That is hilarious. Okay, that's very good. That's really, really good. They got a couple of different cross sections working in that one. All right. Well done, Jonas. Well done.

All right, from Daniel A47. He's probably a pro-Trump guy. Let's see. He literally just nutted in me and started watching UFC Macau early pre-doms. God, that's Long Island. That's my girl? That is not my girl, but, you know, that picture is very accurate. I mean, I could make a real mean joke here.

I want you to know that. I'm not going to, but I could make a bad one. Oh, man, I wish I could get that joke. Can you name anyone from the UFC Macau prelims Long Island? Yeah, fucking Sumiderji was on that shit. This guy. Yeah, he's the rain man of MMA trivia. All right, this is from Chui.

Might be a Mexican fellow. Let's see what we have here. When you get the green light to start mowing the lawn. Chuck They've latched on to this Yeah dude I don't People will latch on to the

People think I was serious When I was like yeah You can't mow your lawn The afternoon I mean yes I was a little annoyed Which was part of the joke But I mean fucking obviously You can do it in the afternoon

But people have hung their hat on this one Big time I love how that meme is just That's been going for like years And years that Daniel Formier Also I will say that's a very funny meme Like well done Julie That was funny

You made me laugh I like All right If you want to roast me, you want to roast Chuck, you want to roast the show, you want to roast BC, or you just want to have a good time, morning combat at gmail.com. That's going to be the place. Best one all month will get a signed poster for free. Chuck, let's set this up.

I know you're coming to BC. How can folks get your coverage for the big fight coming up this week? And also, we're going to meet up tomorrow. Are we not? Are we doing this? Yes. Yes. I mean, I'll get to that in a minute, but yes.

Okay. So I might see plenty of you this week. So I'm going to have plenty. I'm going to have a lot of coverage. I can't really detail exactly what it is. I've got a couple of feelers out there to try to do some pieces that will give us information about what's happening. But I'm going to have something probably daily beginning on Wednesday all the way through Sunday. So, yes, I'll have a lot of stuff coming up here.

Do you know if Ariel's coming to town? I don't know that. I did not hear if he's going to go to this one. And yeah, but you know, there are people that I'm, I don't know if you've been hearing that you live there. but are people getting in touch that you haven't seen for years that are going to be floating through town? Because I've had a couple of those Greg Rosenstein from the athletic being them.

He didn't hit me up yet, but I definitely have heard for some other people, yeah. Yeah, it's just, so I think it's going to be like the old days, you know, when you'd have the big event, there's going to be a lot of people there. Do you know where you're going to be fight night? Yes, I do now. So I finally asked, because I was like,

they sent you kind of a cryptic thing that's basically saying you're probably not on the West Long, but it's saying like, you know, you'll get further instructions if you are. I never did. So I asked the UFC like, hey, can you tell me definitively am I on the West lawn there?

And they acted like, no, dude, you're not on the West lawn, you know? Like it was never going to, never in question. So I'm in a media center. And I'm guessing the bulk of

MMA media is probably in that, in that center. I think they're putting up a tent either on the ellipse or I'm told that they might have one near the Hay Adams, which is like a really ritzie, fancy hotel nearby. Yeah, yeah. So could be that.

I mean, it'd be, who knows, it's all good. I didn't really, to be honest, I wasn't like that stoked to be on the West Lawn. I didn't really care one way or another, but I was like, I'll be fine with the media center. You and Sean Strickland are going to hang out, huh? Yeah. No, he's banned. No. I mean, speaking of somebody who just march his way in there. You remember how your in-laws were being like, did the U.S.

I know. Get approval of the way? Sean Strickland would just walk up in there. He might be the one. one guy who gets arrested for like breaching security like trying to get in with a it's like there was an incident at the White House today a man tried to jump the fence

and you're like it's Sean fucking Strickland Long Island what about you my friend what do you got going on for coverage? I mean I got the usual bet breakdowns prop quays on Friday Gaff and I gonna do an in person watch along for this card so you know make it a little special so we'll do that on Sunday

obviously and that's why I was asking when we're going to go Luke because I feel like the turnaround between this card ending and MK on Monday. It's going to be a quick turnaround. Yeah, we'll see. But I'm looking forward to the rest of the week. Let's mention it tomorrow, tomorrow, it'll be me. It'll be this gentleman here and it'll be Jed Mishu. Yes, it'll be all of us for our UFC White House pregame preview live at 11 a.m. in the east in New York City, in studio, going to be a good time. We're going to talk about the fights. We're not going to make it too political. Don't worry. There is a

place for that. Luke Thomas gets political. You YouTube channel. But if you want just for, you know, fight analysis and whatnot, we're going to, you know, that's a thing, Chuck. I keep saying it. Like, no one is talking about the fights. Tomorrow's going to be a great opportunity. Yeah. Talk about the fights. So are you, are you, and beyond that, like, what do you got? Do you have like some, because I know you've been hitting, like, CNN and doing some of these, I do have some big appearances. I have multiple interviews every single day. All right. And I have, I have CNN Thursday morning. I have CNN, Thursday morning. I have CNN, Friday

Thursday morning Friday morning Friday afternoon and then Monday morning Monday afternoon as well and then I've got I'm doing the Slate podcast I'm talking to El Pai East

I'm talking to the Wall Street Journal like look at this I love it man this is going to be a fun one but like my I have his producer my friend Othello he's like we should do a live chat out in town I'm like I'm not going to get Jan 6th up in this motherfucker I'm not

like this is not the same kind of fight week where it's like oh uh max is fighting volk you know what i mean it's like right you might get some people who have presidential pardons up in town today you know what i'm saying so i'm not playing that stupid ass game but you know i'll have i will be visible i'll put it to you like that i will be visible all right we'll see and then and then we'll talk about this tomorrow but then fight night i'll obviously have a live watch along the whole way through and everything else from there All right. All right. One more time, morningcombat.combat. Shop. We got the new releases. Let's show him this one. You don't have to go through all the individual ones, but on the left there, you have the Genesis. In the middle, you have the motorcycle one. And then on the right, you have the, I think this is the crown one. You can go check all of those out. And then we have the basketball exclusives for the West, which is this gray one. And then the east for the basketball, which is the whitish kind of grayish one. There you have it. All right. Long Island, predictions for game three before we go.

Make it fast. I mean, Knicks are going to win. Nixon four. Let's go. Nixon four. Yeah. My mayor Muslim, my bagels, Jewish, my Christians, Dior. Nixon four, apparently is the hot new thing you're seeing everybody say. All right. Four Long Island for Chuck Mendenhall. We'll see you guys tomorrow live in studio. And until then, they all of your gains, be loyal. This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human.