MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC Vegas 119 Results | UFC Considering Trevor Wittman’s ONX MMA Gloves? | DDP-Usman Announced

Episode Date: June 22, 2026

In the main event of UFC Fight Night: Kape vs. Horiguchi 2, Manel Kape scored a dramatic stoppage win in the third round after being down on the cards. Luke Thomas and Chuck Mindenhall recap Kape vs. Horiguchi and the rest of the past weekend's card at the Apex. Plus, the UFC announced Dricus du Plessis vs. Kamaru Usman coming up in July and are there new gloves coming to the UFC? That and more with LT, Chuck and the MK crew on a Monday.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. Look at this now. Oh, Jesus. That's what 11 a. I'm back. Oh, there is. You fit in seamlessly in this weird MK environment.

Do you want a margarita? Do it. Two, three, two, three. Exception. Your marks get set and go on. Hey, I don't mind the Apex shows. They weren't that bad this weekend. We're going to talk about it.

Welcome, everyone, to another edition of Morning Combat here on this 22nd day of June, 2026. My name is Luke Thomas. I am merely one half of your hosting duo. I join you from the capital of Estatus of Nidos right here in Washington, D.C. Next to my brethren, he is the Iceman. It's Chuck Mendenhall. What's up, Charles? How are you, bud?

I'm well, man. You know, that was a hell of a juxtaposition from the White House to the meta-apex, wasn't it? That felt like a little different of an event, didn't it? It felt like a, you know how it's like, it's like the difference between dogs and wolves? You know what I mean? I'm not even sure that's the same species of thing, you know? Yeah, very different. But yeah, I mean, good cards.

I think this is the first time we've had back to back all finishes on main cards in a long, long time. I'd have to look up exactly when it happened. I know it used to happen back in the day, but it feels like it has been a long-ass time since we've seen that happen. Yeah, the ebbs and flows, but I mean, as long as it's flowing, I don't know who would be complaining about it. We will definitely talk about that today. We're going to talk about the Kyojuraguchi and Manel Cop, both main event as well as the card. We're going to talk about, well, a bunch of things happening all in the sport,

including but not limited to Trevor Whitman discussing some gloves. We got a main event for that UFC July fight night card in Oklahoma City, which should be an absolute banger. And Daniel White and Eddie Hearn, well, they just keep arguing. So I guess we'll keep covering it. I don't know. Thumbs up if you haven't already. Hit subscribe.

You can follow us on our social. as you can see here below on the screen. And of course, we're always available MorningCombat at Gmail.com to reach the show. Fan subs, which we'll do later. Best one all month gets a free sign poster. And then, of course, we have merch as well. MorningCombat.combat.combe. Shop is available with three designs for a June exclusive.

We have the Genesis design. We have the biker design. And then we have the crown design. Again, we also have the couple of June extras here. The Basketball West shirts and The Basketball East. shirts those are still available all at morning combat dot shop let's bring in the third member here of the show i don't know if he's sober but i do know that he's here and that's the thing that matters the most it's my my brother from another well not mother but like we got the same first name

whatever the brother we get the same first name we might as well be related what's up guys how are you you know i i got to call you out luke because i you started the show by saying i don't mind these apex cards the amount of times you've shit on me for watching these apex cards and you're going to sit here and say you don't mind. Here's the thing. Here's the thing. Like, let's just say this. The White House card was a little, there's a lot going on. I liked something that was a little lighter, right? I'll just say that. And the thing is, I mean, the apex cards, you know, they can be hit or miss. I don't think that's like any. You know, listen, fans like us kind of know what you're going to get one way or the other with these kinds of things.

But the thing I kill you about is that you're just like, you know, friends and family, go fuck yourself. to stream nine hours of this shit. Literally every single Saturday. Literally left my nephew's birthday party to stream the car. Not saying I left early, but you know, I did leave. I was the first to leave. I'll just say that much, guys. You know, are you guys excited, though?

They said that like these renovations with the, the apex. I mean, now they're going to have a thousand seats in that joint. You guys excited about this a little bit? I don't know who could be opposed to it. You know what I mean? Like, well, they pull it off in the end. How's it going to go? I don't know.

But like, is anyone complaining that they're going to make it more social? No. I don't think so. They needed. Have you been in there? I forget. Yes. I've been in the Apex. Yeah. I mean, it's a fine facility. It's been, it's very more like sometimes on these fight nights. I think that that actually might give it an atmosphere. So we'll see. The thing that I think people don't realize is, I mean, there's different parts of the Apex, right? Like, there's different parts do different things. But like people, it's like, it's hard to explain. It's more like they tried to build something in the middle of a convention space.

Yes. Right? Rather than like building a hotel where you, you would think about all the different layers of the walls, how the artwork would look and lighting and everything. This was more just like, we got a facility, you know? Right. Exactly right. They're kind of just retrofitting it after the fact. Yeah, it's really weird the first time you go. It's right off the highway like is your head and yeah, red mountains. It's very strange. But yeah, it can only be better from here. I went to the UFC offices one time for, uh, what the hell was that? Like a, I don't know, like a Casadores kind of activation or something. I forget. Oh, you know what?

I think that was like in 2022. And they're real nice, those offices. They're real nice. They put some money into those. I'm surprised they let you in there. I'm a little bit surprised. That was the first end of the last time. Let's be honest about that.

Not sure either one of us would be too welcome there right now. But I'm not going to plan to make a pit stop. Let's put it that way. All right. So I think that's all the things we have to do for setting up. As we mentioned, it was a return to the apex. So let's do it now. Topic number one.

Let's talk about that main event. Kyoji Horaguchi was, looking pretty good. It was all going, I'm not going to say all going his way, but pretty much going his way for two rounds and some change, but then it all came apart. Here is the actual exchange. Kojo-Huriguchi goes for a one-two overcommits a great kind of like duck and roll by cop. He lands a right hand, finishes him off here with this Hendo style uppercut on Fador from behind the armpit there, Chuck. I know you remember that. And then he wins. So like, What is the story of this fight, Chuck?

Because he spent a lot of round two on his back. He got taken down other times. He was honestly, Horaguchi was kind of landing on him at range too. But when it mattered most, his fast, twitchy kind of boxing really got him the job. Got the job done. Excuse me.

What did you make of it? Well, you know how sometimes we talk about when a guy loses, he gets better, right? Because he's able to go back, look at the tape. If he thinks he's invincible, he's given a hard lesson.

This is a weird one because it might be the best kind of victory in the sense that you can almost treat it like a loss you're going through the first two and a half rounds or however long that went you're not winning this fight until that moment when he lands that right hand and obviously he pounces and he's able to get that finish which was very nice it was more of a story of perseverance though in the end because like you mentioned in that second rounds especially it felt like we had a pattern developed and it horiguchi's corner was basically like hey stop with the body stuff even though he was having success with it but stop with that go for these takedowns. That was pretty easy.

They even said something along those lines, and he basically proved it in that second round, taking Cap down for, I think, four minutes of that round. But, you know, this is the one thing, like, we keep talking about, like, at that division, Cap hits very hard. And that's always going to be the thing with him is, like, if you don't, you know, control the fight or put him more, stay out of his hazard area, this can happen. And this is one of those, the Horoguchi at 35 years old, and especially where he was placed.

in that division like he's knocking at the door of getting a title shot he's going to have regrets man and i know you get caught in this kind of fight and he just couldn't overcome it but i think he should have probably just kept what he was doing you know it felt like a little you tell me to it felt like a little bit like he's like let's let's stand and bang a little bit and that hurt him in this but i i think the story that you're mentioning is that it felt like a loss up until the moment it wasn't and that can be a good thing for cap is he's going forward to kind of address, you know, problems that he might have had in those first couple of rounds while still getting the W in him being in contention. So he didn't hurt his stock, but obviously,

you know, he was losing that fight for sure, man. I'm both score, all three scorecards, I think, right? Yeah, we have the scorecards. So one judge, Chris Lee gave round one to cop. I find that one bizarre. That's weird, yeah. Long Island, do you find that bizarre? I won't say it's bizarre. I did have Kyoji up two zip, but I will say round one was a lot closer than round two. Round two, I mean, is. Yeah, so I don't like, I don't think it's crazy, but I had a two zip. Yeah, okay. Crazy is a strong word or bizarre is a strong word, but it was surprising.

I just thought it was definitive enough. I mean, I don't know. I mean, I'll say this. I, this is kind of funny. The whole thing is kind of funny. Like, cop, cop to me, you know, like the well-roundedness of Horoguchi was on display in this fight, both in the striking as well as obviously in the other dimensions, again, having, I don't know how many minutes of top control in round one, but probably up to three

or more, maybe. It was a lot there. So, like, the well-roundedness was on display. But, like, you know, like, Horaguchi, like, I mean, he was beating Sergio Pettus before he got Catoed, you know? True. He was, this is not an unfamiliar thing for him where he, like, has this sort of well-rounded suite of tools and it can usually do. pretty well, but the minute he starts playing with risk, he doesn't have the other defensive fundamentals or just durability, actually, in this particular case. Well, both, really, to get it done. Like, one thing I want to make a point of here is, like, cop was doing a lot of open stance

in this fight. This one was closed. This particular exchange was closed. They had the same stance. And if you actually notice, do like, one thing that, like, is just a telltale sign that someone's, like, used to MMA striking and not much else, is, I mean, they'll do this in boxing too, Chuck, but a lot less. where they'll throw something,

bah, bah, and then you'll see them weave as they pull out and reset. In other words, they start an offensive action, and they always finish every time with a defensive reaction en route to resetting the range or to exiting the pocket or whatever the case may be. So it's ba-b-b-b-b-you-know, or it's ba-b-b-b-you- know,

whatever it is. And you'll notice here he gets overconfident, in my view, Horiguchi. He was landing on cop in this round, like kind of hard punch. He had him rocked a little bit. I actually feel like he was, you know, had him kind of reeling a little bit. And you'll see he goes for a jab and then he goes for the two. And cop gets underneath it and then bha and cracks him because he's, he just throws it.

Watch, watch Horaguchi. Don't watch anything else. Oruguchi punch. Look, he throws the one two and then just stays there. He doesn't bring anything back up, Chuck. And it's just like, dude, you can't, you can't do this. you've pointed this up before, this very thing. Like, guys tend to do this.

I don't know what it is, especially going against a guy like cop who has had some big finishes. We know his power. But to go in there that confidently is weird, right? Like, I just, like, when you see it like that and like you kind of isolate and you watch, it's like the response. I don't know what he's thinking there because this is a guy who relies on his stand-up and cop. Like, you know, that's maybe the moment that he needed. So it just feels like an error in the end for Horaguchi.

But you have absolutely pointed this out before. Why do so many, why do so many fighters do that? You know what I mean? Especially if they're going against a guy who's known for a stand-up. Do you have any theories on this? I feel like we see this quite a bit. I think that most of the time they get away with it. Yeah.

Most of the time it's never a thing that they think about. Most of the time they don't have sparring partners making them suffer for it or whatever. And this is why when they go to boxing, you know, guys who have like, good m-ma striking even like even certain cases like good m-ma boxing and then they just look real weird because they just don't have enough of the defensive reactions and also the part too is like watch and this this is a consequence of the way which mama has fought where m-ma has fought where m-ma has fought further away typically than in boxing i mean obviously they can get close to but if they're just kind of striking yeah they tend to be a little further away uh and so it makes

people when they throw their cross it makes it such that they have to step with it not just with the front but then the back one comes up so then all their weight is on that front foot and they're not they don't have a balance like i'll see shit like that all the time and it's like again almost no one makes him pay for it chuck but if you do that against someone who knows what they're doing they're going to eat you alive for shit like that you know yeah and i mean it's a bad way to go for horo Gucci especially because i was i don't know how you felt about it but i was if if he had made his way to joshua van if that had been a fight it was a very interesting fight based on the well well roundedness that you were mentioning.

But I was like, you know, it's the full package of Horaguchi that you, that you're looking at in that situation because you don't want to stand and strike with Van directly. And you see a mistake like this and you're like, well, then you project kind of how that fight with Van would go. And you're like, that probably wouldn't bode well for him either of a guy who's like just that much of a sniper. But it's tough, man. Like Horaguchi at 35 years old, how did you feel about this, man?

And like I felt like he was, that was a very good showing up until the moment it wasn't. I just felt like he was kind of doing what he's been doing these last couple of fights. Who's the guy he be to gear? What's his last name? The dude. Yeah, that guy, that particular fight was eye open. I was like, we're seeing maybe the best version of this guy. And this continued on all the way through this fight up until the moment it didn't.

This is such a cruel game that way, isn't it? Like one mistake and you're back out of it. I know and for such a highly experienced fighter too. I mean, this is a guy who has fought big opponents and big cards and in big stakes, either in his home country of Japan or abroad. Let's look at this tweet from Kōji Hori. I'll answer your question this way, Chuck. Here's what he writes on Twitter, I think yesterday.

Quote, thank you all for your support. Again, this is translated, so take care for what it is worth. I got spectacularly knocked out. I'm truly sorry. Cop was strong. Thank you. This is why I can't quit martial arts. I'll retrain and be back in no time.

I'm not giving up on my dream yet. I mean, Chuck, to this point, like, and to the question you raised, he did not look bad to me. No. You know, he didn't look shot. He looked fleet of foot. He looked like Keorgiuriguchi.

I did not see a drop off, but it's just like against these guys who can snipe in the pocket, you know, he just doesn't have the durability to play that game. And that's what he's going to be, you know? Yeah, well, that's his only chance.

to be reduced to, I think this is it, you know. Do you agree, though? Like, I mean, Cop goes through this and you're like, you could go back and watch it. And I mean, if your coaches are with you and saying like, hey, this was basically a loss up until you got through with it. Is it, do you agree? I mean, I feel like he could kind of learn something from watching this tape. You know what I mean? There's definitely technical mistakes he can pick up on.

But I think, you know, it's like one of the questions that I always run into that I never have a good answer for is like you asked me like why do so many guys do it and then part of the reason is like well you know they don't have teammates who do it or or who are able like not everyone's got like a sniper kind of teammate who can make right pay for that kind of thing but like my like my which is to me like in a way to like help understand why some of these things don't exist but the other part of me is like okay dude but you're 35 like you are an experienced mma fighter you like have to know where the boundaries are and what the rules have to be especially against cop who might have a, you know, relative to Horiguchi, a limited skill set.

But the parts where he's potent are he's like very potent, as you can see. It just blows my mind. I do want to say something, though. I have to say, if you're a newer MMA fan, this won't be a thing that you probably will care about, nor am I suggesting that you should. But I will say, as someone who's been around watching this shit for a long time, it is fucking unbelievable to me, Chuck, that there's never been. I know Machita qualifies, but I mean a Japanese-born Japanese fighter.

right. If you have been around as long as us, the volume of fighters that Japan has produced, obviously more than the lower weight classes, but the volume of them, when they had major teams, with you Tsukai Shukai and fucking crazy B

and all these fucking teams, and they were well advanced on the women's side before we ever were. It is, we've got a Chinese champion. Well, we had one, obviously. A really great one at that. and their relatively new entrance into this market truck.

It blows my mind. Yeah, it's wild. You remember Fight Magazine back in the day? Of course, yeah. So, like, Fight Magazine, it was really cool. It was more of a literary, you know, they tried to go in for it. I remember I did a piece for them back then where it was like Japanese fighters that come over and fight in America. And, you know, there were only a few of them, like Yushin Okami and Uno.

There was a few of them. But the record when they fought on American soil was horrendous. It was really, really bad. So that was and this had to have been 12 years ago. So like when you when you think about that we're kind of still there, like that is that is a, it's almost unfathomable, like especially given that we've had a couple. I know that a couple of the, you know, a couple of the Japanese contenders who've come up, they were kind of maybe thrown in there. But with Tyra, right? Like I felt like that might be the one.

And it was such a quiet narrative. It was like we might finally get a Japanese champion and nobody was really talking about it. But we did. And I remember we were thinking, you know, how is that possible at that moment? But I, what was the thing that you did? I basically circled Horigut. You circle a guy like Horiguchi. Like, he's still right there.

And now he's kind of behind the eight ball. So it's one of those things that's a lasting fascination for me that we haven't had a Japanese champion breakthrough. Even getting as close to Cal Uno drawing with BJ Penn. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like they've come that fucking close. It's crazy. Yeah.

And again, the other part, too, is not just the volume of fighters they produced, but like the world was centered there for, the MMA world was centered there. Again, I know this is ancient history. I'm just saying for those of us who saw it, you know, Japan now is more, I think, of a sort of a side, but important, but side curiosity. But it was, it was like the show back in the day. Yushin Okami had beat Anderson Silva, you know, back in the day. Level in the Rock.

Yeah. So it was like you, and so when he fought him in Brazil, it was actually at that fight, you're like, well, this might be it. So you do that piece, right? You're like, here we go. That was 14 years ago, dude. I've been writing this piece for years and years. All right.

Well, we haven't said much about cop. And I think the, well, at least I haven't. And I think the thing I would like to say about hit this is I think that what makes him an exciting contender is that danger waits at any moment. He can be beat. Clearly, he is not the most technically advanced fighter in that weight class. But in terms of turning nothing into something and how fast he can do that, I think that particular kind of threat, Chuck, makes him like a, you know,

a really, really, really kind of exciting candidate for the, for what could be next. And in fact, I want you to react to this. We've got cop talking about Van, obviously the weight class champion, potentially being next. Joshua Van was in attendance. He got to watch you. Obviously, you and Pantosier are the two guys that people think, should fight next. Do you think tonight was enough for you to get this fight with Joshua it was enough even last time when I fought brain off about it was enough everything what I do in

the cage it was enough you know because I delivered the spectacular I finish I finish the guys but let they fight I need to take some time off you know take care of business uh chill out with family see my friends um I just want to rest a little bit okay Joshua Van has not had sense of Not very nice things about you for a while now. Do you feel like, do you dislike this guy? Do you feel like he's being rude about you? How do you feel about the champion? Don't feel nothing, brother.

No feel nothing. I just beat a guy way better than him. You know, my resume is way better than him, you know. He just started in a position there is because I broke my foot, you know, and he step ahead against the rival. A fight that he lose, but the knockdown stole the Cho, of course. but guess what? I knock him out to Brandon Howard Valley in the first round.

So anything he can say is he's my kid, you know, he's my kid and can't wait to take his diaper. Do you feel like you knock him out if he fight it? Of course, of course, definitely. I love it. That's a bangor, man, if that happened, right? I mean, that's a banger fight. First of all, he's right that, well, I mean, you can't leap frog pantogia in my mind.

And short of him not being ready, I do not suspect that they would. That being said, the winner of that, out clearly cop is right is the guy after that like so that part is very very clear about where we go from here who do you think he matches up better with who do you think the ufc would rather him match up it seems to me the answer's got to be van right right well i mean i think you feel like the ufc's behind van obviously is like the young this young sensation who's winning like a potential you know a guy with potential to kind of be a star in this league so young but that's the kind of fight that if you can if you can book cap versus van that you're going to get fireworks because i don't

really think that either guy would do anything other than try to beat him the way that they fight right like so they're going to go they're going to accommodate each other um i think just in a general sense and you tell me this too i feel like van is probably the superior boxer here but like at the same time like you're saying the great equalizer with that power you know he's and he has a pretty good reach right like he's got cap has pretty good reach he changes he's fluid with his stance where he'll kind of go back and forth between South Paul but

I think it would be just a fascinating fight to watch and it would take place on the feet. So just in a quick sense I'm like I feel like that's another binger and the flyweight division has had a few over the last couple years so I feel like that would just kind of feed right back into that.

Yeah I will say something about this it's like dude we all know like every every fan knows the sport moves so fast and being on the sidelines for whatever reason can just be so detrimental in part because the ones who are not on the sidelines this all of a sudden will just overtake your position.

I will say, don't you find it crazy that Pantoja was like putting together the best win streak in this division since Demetrius Johnson? He had this nickname the cannibal. He had that breakout moment where he was like, Dad, do you see me now? On all action style, all friendly, and all anyone can talk about is who, you know, Josh Van, which, and you get too,

because Josh Van is also this phenom and it's very, very exciting. But it's just so funny, dude, how you can, like, you can just deliver and deliver and deliver and be basically forgotten almost like that. It's all of us. It's all of us. And it's like, it's like the, it's the human scroll, right? Like it's a dopamine who's, who's involved right now, the attention. I mean, Van has, you know, I want to see that rematch.

That's the unfortunate situation of copy. He's kind of outlining the fact that he should have already been there. He should have. But at the same time, you're like the way that that played out. And how many, Pantanthosia had, what, five defenses? He had quite a few defenses. You're going to have tenure in that situation because the way that fight ended was fluky. And we didn't establish anything.

We didn't learn anything. So that's the fight that has to happen next. But I would be fine with, if Cap is raiding in the wings, that's perfect. I don't know how long we have to wait now. I don't know where Pantosia is at on his recovery. but I feel like that's a very healthy spot to be in. If you have, you know, part two of Van Pantosia and then you have cap weight in the wings, that's a very healthy situation, isn't it?

I think that that's pretty exciting for the division. Yeah, man, I would, I would, I'd have to go back and watch the Pantosia cap. I remember Pantosia debuted, I think, was his UFC debut when he fought him. And it was a long time ago. But to see, like, the matchups in terms of, like, who would hold up better? like who would cap who should he favor and that type of thing that might be tough because i think that van plays plays the same kind of fire game he wants to whereas pantosia is just a buzzsaw and he's going to try to do exactly what he did before right like he's just going to he's just going to put it on you and

like basically what horooguchi was doing there but he's not going to stop uh last thing i'll say on this is mohaman mokaiov i what are we doing because i was not opposed to him being cut from the when he was cut because if you look at his wins like he he was able to win at this level he was able to win but he was winning by just kind of retreating to positional control which meant that if you kept him in this kind of crucible where he has to stick to that he's never really going to grow actually if you want him to grow I think when they cut him what was he chuck 23 24 yeah he's 23 years old something insane right he was 7 and 0 in the UFC at that point totally again it's not a question of could he win? It was a question of

if you want this flower to bloom so to speak, you have to put him somewhere else. You have to let him get the space to try this. And that has happened and I don't know exactly how far that's taken him, but like now is a great time to bring him back. Now I'm like, now I'm like,

okay, this is totally like, Mokai of has really leveled up and Van ends up being the guy, Chuck, right? Dude, a van versus Mokai of fight between two guys who are still in 20s, a title fight, but are much more, you know, like they're rapidly escalating their games.

That is fucking great if you can get something like that. So let's see what happens with Mocha. And that would be the fourth guy. And you know, you have others too. I was right. I was looking at that before. Like it's Pantosia van, cap. I mean, there's still Tyro there's Royable.

I mean, Horikuchi, like that division is very deep. But if you bring back Makayev, you know, and like you're mentioning, these are two guys between him and Van, who are vying at one point for John Jones's record. both of them had legit shots van got side like he took the loss and that derailed him from getting it but he only missed it by like six months um and macaaev was one of those guys who was very vocal about getting it but dude there's still there's still like 20 22 23 for van or whatever he is and then uh and and and macaiav is only 25 so i i think he should be back he's been like i think he's four and no outside the ufc he's kind of he stayed busy enough um he adds the dynamic to this

division like and also if you wanted to run back you know the cap fight again like i don't know if cap would be done with that but like dude i'd be okay with it um it's been one of those weird ones man because it's like i felt like at the time it was more he was more of an annoyance with his style but it was also he was an annoyance to the ufc and you hope that they can get past that because i always felt like people like i'd always circle him he was always deep on the prelims mahaia of and he would be like watch this guy watch this guy but he just never ascended in the UFC's eyes. I hope they can rectify that. I was going to say too, like you mentioned Brandon Royval's at the top.

He's got a fight against Lonnie Kavanaugh at this Connor McGregor card. And Kavanaugh too, Jesus, man. Like flyweight, you bring Mokai of back. I know. You got some shit cooking down. I would be one of the deeper divisions. I know we did a rankings once of the best divisions. And it actually was in there when we were talking about it.

I feel like it's escalated since then. I will tell you one of my takes that has in my own mind, the worst is that about i mean this was a while ago so this is yeah this is about 10 years ago so i mean consider we're talking 2016 right or whenever what do you remember when dana white was threatening to get rid of flyway and then like it was cutting you know shorty torres and stuff and i did a segment on my radio show at the time being like if you had to choose right and the and the choice was right then yeah so you know like on some level it wasn't crazy that i made the choice that i made but we did we did like this kind of experiment. If you had to cut flyweight now,

or if you had to cut heavyweight now, which would you cut? And in 2016, it seemed fucking insane that you would cut heavyweight. And now I'm like, oh, get rid of those fuckers first. I know. I know big time. There was, there were, because Demetrius was ruling that division,

there was like, there was this feeling like sometimes he'd be a main event. And the crowd would leave after the co-main event because they weren't even interested in the flyweight. That was the craziest stuff. I feel like that's such a bygone need now. The division has gotten, I don't know about you, but I don't look.

Most of these fights, the people used to circle. I flag with those are little guys, you know, no finishes. That is not the case anymore, man. I mean, it's just, it's dynamic. It's all over the place. Highly, highly skilled guys all the way from one to 15 in that division. No, dude, it's become like must see TV for me. The real lesson of MMA over the last 10 years is that it's gotten smaller.

Well, I mean, I'm not talking about the sports. in this particular context. I mean, the fighter, the athlete, the better, the sweeter spot has gotten to the smaller end of the weight spectrum. All right. Let's go to the rest of that card, which means topic number two. Let's kind of examine some of the other features of what we saw on Saturday. So Chuck, we talked about the main event. Let's go to that co-main event. 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. favorite hits and must have party bangers, plus personalized and curated playlists, like back in

the day pride. Come together, celebrate. Take pride with you anytime, anywhere. Just ask your smart speaker to play IHeart Pride Canada. Stream us on your phone or listen now at IHartRadio.ca. Navajo Sterling defeating Iwan Kutte Labba. I want to bring in Long Island Luke on this one, if I can for just a second. Now, Chuck and I are going to talk about Sterling and Kutte Laba.

and how they matched up on what we saw here. You can see the bottom part of it. Why didn't Kutalaba just get up at the end? What the fuck was that? I don't know. And that fight pissed me off because I was saying going into it. Gaff and I were going ahead to head. Gaff's like I got Navajo Sterling.

I was like, I don't know, man. I feel like I want Kutalaba is a live dog here. And he did win the first round on all three judges' scorecards. He was looking okay in that second round. He's going well in the second round. Same for touchy-feely. I know we're going to get to that fight too. But damn, man, he was looking so fucking good early on.

on and just kind of like it's like the narrative all night right yeah had horaguchi doing the same thing they was like guy winning early lost we have also been asked in the past like who is your donk mount rushmore and like honestly even before this fight i feel like iwan kutalaba was on donkumont rushmore so like can we really fault the guy he's kind of a donk i mean it is what so when he was fighting donkolaev like you were you were torn as to who could out donk the other guy i mean that was it was just the most i just turned it off i couldn't watch it check that was that was a don't singularity. Which, by the way, is one of the reasons why their fights were so fucking weird, too, by the way.

I mean, we should have seen in retrospect. That was the Avengers of Dong. You know what I mean? All right. But let's talk about Sterling. Chuck, the big question we had on Friday show, I know you weren't here, but Friday show was, hey, listen, maybe they're pushing Sterling a little too early up the 205 ladder, but he was undefeated.

Again, we're talking about Friday. And I know he wants, so he stays undefeated. you know, in Friday's context, he's undefeated. And, you know, the concern here is they might be pushing him a little too soon. However, it's an interesting map pairing because Kutai Laba is defeatable if you, you know, because he just just doesn't, he takes risks and doesn't manage things as well as other fighters. He has dialed that in, but that's still kind of a lingering issue for him. And you saw that he would fake being hurt and then try and bomb on you, you know, he does stuff like that.

So the thing is, like, it's a great test for Sterling if he can pass it. He did pass it. Did he pass it for you in such a way that really felt to you like I'm watching a guy grow in real time? This is, it's very similar to the fight we just discussed because he's losing the fight. You know, he got through that, that kind of guillotine attempt. There was a couple, there were a couple of moments where, like, taken down. Just he's in the, he's in the weaker position for big parts of that fight. it just seemed to me that Qutilaba like gassed out didn't it I mean it just seemed if he doesn't like kind of just I don't know it's just like he had an adrenaline dump or something but like he just couldn't do anything in that mid second round and that's why he loses this fight but yeah man I was kind of with you it's like a it's like a lower bar litmus test because Qatulaba has been in there even if he's won and lost some fights but he's been in there with guys who are champions like obviously we were just talking about Uncle I have there was

that series, but he also, like, Glover Tashara, he stood in there with some guys who, you know, are proven metal guys and he's held his own. So I felt like this will be a good misstess for him. But again, I feel like if you're this, what is he, like 28 years old, he's with city kids, he's around these guys who are very good, mentally, physically, they know how to kind of coach you and where you are at. And I think that this is probably one of those good victories in the sense that you were losing. So you're going to go be critical of yourself. when you go back and look at this. So he passes the test. But honestly, like it looked to me, like what Long Lion was saying was like it looked to me like maybe this was the step too far up

until it wasn't. You know, it's like up until that moment when it wasn't, I was like, okay, he got by with this. But I feel like he's got some things to shore up. You know, he's still a young relative with 10 and 0 in the game. He's got some things to shore up on. But he got the W and that's the important thing here. I mean, one of the things that we discussed on Friday was just kind of how insanely wide open 205 is all of a sudden becoming. This was the first time where I had heard a fighter asked, hey, who do you want to fight? And he's like, I don't even know, just whoever. And I'm like, if ever there was a time to use that argument, it's in 205 right now, especially like the place he's at where he's still kind of on the outside inching up.

And it's like, who's there? He was ranked though, right? like in terms of the old rankings but like he was right you know what we didn't discuss we didn't put this in the rundown we should just say for the show's purposes there was an announcement on the broadcast that the UFC is for the rankings that come out tomorrow right based on saturday's results they're going to be the ones that are algorithm based it was so funny when dana by the way i again i don't want to get lost sidetracked here but he goes he says uh he goes you know yeah like it's good then when sanctioning bodies can't tell fighters who they have to

and the fans get to pick. I'm like, I'm like, you guys are picking. Like, you created proprietary software or you're renting it like enterprise software so that you can pick. Like, what are we like what? What are we talking about? It's the craziest thing. There's something. There's a lot of illogical stuff going on with Dana right now, you know? I just don't get it. But whatever. It doesn't matter. Neither here nor there. Let me pull up the rankings so I can answer that question more effectively where he sits in the current prediction. We were just talking about the fly weights and how deep that

division is, but this is a completely different experience here. Yeah. Yeah, he's not ranked. So, oh, he wasn't, okay. No, and I'm looking to see if Kutilava was either, no. So 15 is Menefield. That seems like a good test, but here's the problem. 14th is

Rackich, he's gone to heavyweight. 13 is Walker, he's gone to heavyweight. 12 is Krillov, and that seems like a bridge too far right now. Maybe Sterling could win that, you know? Her love's fighting Whitaker. Oh, he's fighting Whitaker. That's right. That's right.

Oh, so then 11th is Reyes and then 10 is Gouskov. And Guskov is definitely a bridge too far. Reyes, I guess, is a little bit more. Yeah, Reyes. Because of the damage. But in any case, I'll say this, Chuck. Listen, he physically looks the part. I think he's of the right size, 205er, you know?

Yeah. These 205ers are, you know, a big guy like Rackich can fight 205, but I just think given the reality of heavyweight, maybe that'll be a little bit better for him, although time will tell, I guess we'll see. But anyway, I just feel like Sterling is the right size. But I feel like Sterling is still trying to figure out offensive tempo and when to go and when to break.

You know what I mean? Like, he's driving the car and it's definitely going to where he wants it to go, but it's not obeying all the traffic signals. Like things are kind of still being put together. I will say, though, Cormier's point where he's arguing that Sterling just kind of kept wrestling when Couté Label would stop, that's a good instinct to have. I mean, typically, Chuck, the rule is in the lighter weight classes, especially.

He who initiates the scramble wins it. And these were not quite scrambles. These are more like takedowns into scrambles. But the other rule can be that the guy who just doesn't stop moving in the scramble will ultimately end up winning. And you saw pretty good evidence of that. To have that kind of an instinct, I also think is important. I just want him to find a more cohesive,

offensive identity, Chuck. And then lastly, marry that cohesive identity with just like a bit of a more forward thinking plan. It looks to me like he's reacting a little too much. I feel like he's with the right camp though for like some of the stuff. Like I, you know, he's with he's with dudes who've done it and like, you know, Baraman is like he's very good at this. You know, he's very good at getting guys dialed in the way that they need to be.

It's a promising thing. But I do think what was he? Long Island was he minus he was like minus 300 or something. like this is it's almost it was like prohibitive in a in a strange way because it was light heavy weight i'm like like like you're saying yeah heudelava's a live dog for that reason you know like that was it's it's a lot of a lot of respect there he was like minus 3 30 because kutalaba was like plus two crazy coming back so i mean in that sense you're like well Vegas or like you know the perception is that he's probably better than he is at this point you know but i feel i think that you're right there's there's upside and that's what

you're probably banking on here is that you're saying like give this guy a little little more time and he might be a problem in that division. Let's talk about my boy. My boy. Murdozali Magamadov scores a Scottish twister over a Milsick-Bagnasarian. On Friday show, Chuck, Long Island, tell him the truth. This was the guy I was spotlining. You could just tell.

I didn't take a genius, right? You could see his run on his record. And then, as I mentioned, Chuck, like one of these guys who was like, I think it was 10 and O heading into the fights on Saturday. But if you look at the 10 guys he fought, it was a much tougher schedule. in the regional scene. And lo and behold, you're seeing more Scottish twisters because guys are trying to reverse

from that position and getting caught. But more to the point, this dude, I'm telling you, I don't know how far he's going to go, Chuck, but there's a lot of reason to have optimism in what this guy can offer. Yeah. Are they calling it like the Scottish because of the Stevie Ray thing? Yes.

Okay. It was, that is one thing that I just don't intuitively think about when you get you see these positions like that. like when he grabbed him and then all of a sudden you see his spine and his shoulders and everything like you're oh god because it's almost like he fell into a venous fly trap um like it was just it was one of those moments that happened so fast um it's a thing of beauty but it's like not a thing that i'm intuitively like i didn't i haven't done like a ton of jiu jutsu so it's like i don't really um i don't really look for that but every time it's pulled off or anything like this doesn't it always strike you like oh shit he caught him with a twister you know it's like it still strikes me as this uh this kind of new technique. And he said he's been practicing. He said his brother taught him it. And I'm like, he's, he's very good at it. Do you see how fast he did that? It was like one big motion there. He's pretty incredible. I really, it's so early. I don't want to, you know, always going to be January. Well, I don't know. I mean, let's take it. But good to see a top. Okay, top. Good to see a

45 pound prospect replenishing the ranks as they're coming through. I really, really am happy to see that for the, basically for that division's future, but a phenomenal win by him. Let's talk about this one because it was more controversy and I really don't even know what to, I don't even know what to say about this shit anymore. Vinicius Olivaire, he gets the stoppage over Andre Fili. And the part that's not controversial is he looked like he was maybe closing the show anyway. Right. When he did, you can see these long range uppercuts in the left hand corner, upper left hand

corner. But he was doing a lot more. Fili was up against the fence. He was still kind of moving, Chuck. He was occasionally throwing back, but he was getting bombed on. Yeah. But he eventually gets stopped and there's bleeding from the back of the head. And wouldn't you know it, Chuck?

Who was the referee? Oh my God. Herb Dean, fresh off the gone and Poetan fight. What did you make of what happened? First, let's talk about the stoppage and then the back of the head stuff. And then we'll talk about the fight itself. It's, it's, I don't know. It's just like, it's very strange that a week later we get almost the exact same situation.

And, you know, they, they, they, the herb Dean went on and did a, video where he put like lines of tape on the back of a guy's head and he was like okay let's let's go through this this is not this is a legal area this is a legal area it's just in the middle here that we're worried about um as an extension basically of the spine you know going up through the head like you know and the neck and all this stuff and so we look at this and if you look where that cut is isn't it on the side so it's like but dude it's like we only just got to have the 12 the like the 12 to 6 right like this only became a thing that we've accepted recently but this one was like it looked like to me it's just this blatant 12 to 6 right on the back of the head you know and I'm

like that is a situation just like any other where I'm like did you see it this way I mean I want to know like it looked so obvious because it was a little bit different than the gone thing and gone they're on the ground and they're struggling they're moving he's he's writhing and the punches are coming in and some of them start to land in the back head this is one where like it's in a clinch type thing and he just you know he just cocks like cocks down and boom he just hits him in the back of the head to me this probably should have been examined i just that that was too blatant for me all right so here's the best i can tell okay whatever this is worth if we're taking what her dean said in that video he put out where basically on the back of the head the ear to ear makes

kind of a ring around the head and then below that would be like the nape of the neck that's that's not allowed. And then there's that Mohawk strip one inch wide in the middle. That's not allowed. Okay. So it looked to me that the shot that cut him would be a legal shot because it was not below the ear and it was not in the middle of that Mohawk. It was kind of hereish. Right. And apparently that's okay. So I don't have a problem with that. But there was at least one, if not two elbows I counted that were very much below the top of the ears. They were in the here region. And this is the other part. me, Chuck, it's like one thing if I'm throwing like a slashing elbow and again, you cover and turn and then it hits you or something like that, right? But if I'm, if I've got an opponent hurt

and I'm landing an elbow and they're retreating and then I land another elbow and then I land a third elbow and the third elbow is clearly below where it's supposed to be. It's like, it's one thing where like there's like an accidental interception. It's another one to me that you're in the hunt, you're in the pursuit of a finish, and you don't exercise more caution around how you try to do that. And I know that's got to be really tough, but hello, this is the ultimate fighting championship. Like, figure it out is kind of the way I would answer that. Long Island Luke, did you see that? That like the bleeding shot was maybe okay, but that there were several elbows and then there were flat ones too where he was hitting him here with this part below

the earline. In the moment I said, holy shit, Herb Dean with another fucking controversial back of the head thing. And then the fight ends and I literally stepped away for two minutes and I said, right, I was like, yo, when I get back, I was like, there's a chance they call this a DQ. Like there's a chance they review this and

this is overturned, whatever. And I left and I come back and Loek dogs getting his hand raised. I was like, I guess I didn't give a fuck about it. So didn't hear any of the commentary if they went into it at all? Did they guys? Like after the fight ended where they a little, yes, a little. A little. So I don't know. Yeah, it seems weird and back-to-back weeks. I know these guys are in there every weekend. It's kind of like not bound to happen, but it is a little coincidental, I guess I'll say. But yeah, a little weird. I'll just say that much.

It is weird to me. I mean, I get it's tough, right? Because we're talking Chuck about like a fight. Well, I mean, it's a fight ending scenario. How much intervention do you want to have? Yeah. And that's a very difficult thing. And that's a similarity to the gone fight, right? Like you're in a finishing sequence potentially. And this. especially this one where it's just like, you know, Feeley's pretty rock there and it looks like it's ending. But man, I don't know. It's just the optic of it too. Like, you know, you can, you don't want to be wrong. You don't want to stop a guy,

you know, stop fight and look at it or whatever and be like, dude, I was wrong. That's actually a legal blow. And I feel like that's where he keeps getting caught, Herb Dean, you know. It's like, I'm not going to stop it because I couldn't, you know, maybe you just didn't see it clearly. This one just looked because of the way that they were elbows.

And it was like, you know, it was like a full motion. you know full blow to the back of that but it like you mentioned it's almost probably academic because the fight was virtually going to be over anyway that's that's the reason that you don't like you don't want the controversy because it was going to end that way anyway it's going to end yes so it's not like everyone's like oh man you know he was right there it was back and forth i mean it looked at tables yeah yeah we do got to talk about uh touchy feely land in those body kicks though and probably could have got venison venesis was grimacing holding his

I was like, dude, you could get him out of there. And then he stopped throwing him or maybe even he should start a block either way. It was like, ah, damn. That was a crazy fight, dude. That was a great fight. Chuck, what you made? It's weird how you get like parallels between cards because that was sort of like, you know, with Toporia and Gaichi last week.

It was like to Poria slamming the, you know, the liver shots and, you know, it's just, you saw that one. But dude, he was grimacing and holding it. I was like, what are you doing? Get in there and finish him. And I know that Phile was, this was like a short notice thing, right? Like he kind of jumped in there. But dude, he's been around a long time.

I felt like a squandered opportunity in the end. Didn't it? It felt like he had him done right there. It did. I mean, the thing is, it's like, Feeley kind of did what I thought he would do, which is provide stiff resistance at times very clever and stiff resistance, but also,

just not enough to get over the hump. Right. And that's kind of what you got. Exactly. by the time look dog was moving downhill in that round it was too it was you know it was overwhelming at that point and by the way we should say yeah like up in 45 look dog i thought in general clearly this is going to be a better weight class well he started flowing right like he started like it was it was like he started feeling he's dropping his hands he's doing the old wind-ups and you know

he's doing all that so he's got a little bit of that uh paul harris vibe to me like where it's just a little unpredictable like he's going to do something like the back of the head it just seems it feels like he's going to do this kind of thing more than once. We're going to see him doing, we're going to be talking about him doing weird stuff. I will say that that was a nice bounceback, because remember, one of the worst apex cards,

he's going against Batista, who basically had a showcase against him. And I wondered, you know, how that might affect him. But like he goes, you know, goes up a weight class and his follow-up in the same building. But, like,

that was a good follow-up. I thought that he looked like his confidence was still intact, and he rediscovered everything that he was trying to do in the Batista fight. And this time he got the W. I thought he looked really good, man. I thought so too. Let's talk about somebody else who I also thought looked really good, which was B.M. Mesquita making pretty short work of Melissa Mullins. She essentially, I mean, I forget the exact thing. She pulled guard, I believe,

or she got taken down, then kind of like settled into guard, one of the two, you know, essentially just allowed herself. She got taken down. Yeah. Okay. I forgot exactly. But I remember thinking like, oh, she might fight this to get up. And no, she just played guard. And again, not many people, Chuck, let me just say this. I had a black belt years and years ago tell me this. And they were like, dude, it is very hard for one black belt to submit another off of their back. It's actually quite difficult to do unless one's like really hurt or really, really tired.

It just doesn't really happen. And Mullins is apparently a black belt too. But then Mesquita is not just a black belt. She is a fucking unbelievable black belt. And she, as soon as that elbow was coming down, all the spaces she needed, switches her hips underneath, and gets the,

and gets the, that's the sub. She called out Eileen Perez afterwards. What did you make of her performance? Do you like the call out? I thought the performance was pretty good. It's a weird one though, right?

Because in this fight, Mesquita looked like she wanted to actually do the bone nickel thing. It was like, I'm going to show my hands a little bit. So she goes in there and all of a sudden, boom, boom, boom, she gets rocked a little bit on the feet.

And so, like, Mollins, is that her name Mollins? Like she basically, so Mollens has some success in this moment, but then takes her down. Like they both were beating each other in the, you know what?

They were fighting in each other's. Mesquita was trying to fight like a stand-up at first. Like at least like set things up for her. But and losing there, like they both kind of went into each other's wheelhouse, which was very strange. I thought that Mollins would get up after kind of like the take down, like the she wouldn't play that game because that to me is,

again, trap, right? Like, you're setting yourself up. And I bet you there was a part of her that was like, you know, I want to show the world that I'm world class, you know, jiu-jitsu player too. But that's the danger you run against somebody like mosquito, right? Like, so I thought the performance, like it showed, like she had to face a little more adversity this one and kind of show some different things. She was able to get it done.

And dude, she's fighting these, you know, she's fighting these girls who are below the 15. And I think she called out Eileen who's like, like up in the top five, right? at least very near the top five. And I'm like, I'm all, I'm for it. I'm like, you know what I mean? I'm like, why mess around too long? I feel like she's, you know, she's shown me enough to like, let's see her get challenged.

I think that's a good fight. What did you think of it? Yeah. Again, like, I'm not, I'm not sure if she's going to win a title, talking about Mosquita. Yeah. I don't know that yet. But what I do know is this was no match for her.

And Perez is beatable. And I like that, you know, first of all, this kind of goes unnoticed, released unmentioned, but we should mention it. Mesquita's English is very, very good, right? So she can do promos and call out in multiple languages. And I feel like that's important, you know, in modern UFC. I mean, it's always been important, but especially important now. And again, I'm not going to be super forgiving of just settling on bottom position in

MMA fights unless you're somebody like this, in which case, yeah, knock yourself out. I mean, it's going to go real well for you in all, like, So I think it's a good next fight. I actually really like it. And it's a visible opponent. It's something for people to be like, oh, right. Like the problem with Mosquita, she's been fighting kind of like very in the shadows. Right. You know, she hasn't had a big breakout despite the fact that she keeps winning these bouts relatively easily. Yeah. So I like Perez for what it does for her visibility as well. Yeah. And I think that like mosquito, I don't know. I don't she's like mid 30s, right? Like so like there is a little bit. You're getting. started obviously like she's a highly decorated jihadza player but like you come into a sport like this you want to have the kind of thing she's had which is like three warmups before you start to like you know to get into the serious business of trying to contend but i think that's where she is like she's had a lot of buzzes she's been on the prelims quite a like i think on all of these right like she's kind of been a prelim fighter so it's basically kind of like emerging from you know it's

almost like an amateur career or something but like she's coming she's professional fights but she's emerging into the public eye it's the right time for her you don't have a ton of time to kind of play around with this when you're in your mid 30s like that if she if she has aspirations of fighting for a belt she needs to make that leap yeah she had the only fight she's finished all her ufc opponents um she didn't find the contender series they signed her right away out of lfa which by the way she won her last lFA five for a championship i believe in by submitting her and then she beat evina alexiva in round two but the other ones uh montes or Montse Randon and then Melissa Mullins.

These are all first round stop. She's just rolling right through these people. She needs someone who can like, you know, put her through her basis and to your point make use of the time. She actually has intrigue too. Like, you know, like that division's been tough. It's been tough to get names that you're like you're really paying attention to. I feel like she's got a good buzz to her name. That would be a lot of fun.

It would, you know, who's paying attention to Perez? That would actually make people pay attention to her too. Like what her skill set. Man, women's 135 needs all the help it can get. here comes being Mesquita to the rescue bro. Yeah, yeah. I'm glad she didn't slip. Like it would have been awful if she got like knocked out in that fight.

People love the Shane Collins versus Otari-Tenzelovey fight, but I got to say the big winner for me over the weekend, Chuck, if you have any other one, then let me know. Levon Chocolie, former Bellator fighter. Look at this fucking left hook to the liver. Right here.

Oh my God, dude. He understands something. I mean, the video won't show it. That was Leon Shabazzian, that was Edmund's brother who, once this is over, Chuck, spent several minutes on the ground visibly writhing in agony. One of the best

liver shot chaos of the year easily. That was my big standout. I was glad to see a Bellator fighter who I thought, you know, it was kind of funny, Chuck, when he was in Belletor, he started out being like, you know, not so great. And then he had some wins, he had some losses, but you could see he was definitely getting better. I'm glad they added him

to this 170 division. He's a fun guy to bring into the U.S. see anyone else on this card? Didn't that fight look like it was like, you know, sometimes you'll see like a bully or whatever it is, like a guy just going against a kid who's overmatched and he just curl. That's what that look like. How often you get a fight like that where it's like the dude just curls up,

boom, boom, and he's down. It's like, dude, that looked like Sean Strickland versus an influencer. It did, which is I feel bad for Shabazian because like you said, he was on the mat all that time.

I'm not sure. And he was also nursing his leg. It was like he was hurt two times in a 20 second sequence. badly. The fight ended in 23 seconds. Choccoli, if you didn't see it, y'all. Chokalee lands. Admittedly, you can hear it. You can see it. It lands a hard leg kick. Right? That's the second one. But he lands a hard leg kick before this, the first strike he throws. And immediately you can see Shabazian's demeanor change from the very first kick that he lands. You could see it when they're like, you know, they're they're raising the victor's hand. Like you could see Shabazian's like, dude, I can't believe that was the showing. I just. on. Yeah, I mean, the only other one, like, Luana Santos, like, that was a pretty good showing for her. Like, she didn't get a finish, but fairly dominant, you know,

fight. I didn't get, the one fight I didn't get a catch, was that Shane Collins fight. So I feel like I still got to go back and watch that one. If people thought that was the good one. Let's see what Long Island, Luke thought. Long Island, did you love the Collins, Tanzilovie fight? No, I actually had a bet on, I took a live bet on Tanzalovi in between rounds two and three because I swore it was one, one. apparently all three judges had at 3027 for Collins.

But I swore it was one one. And I was like, I'll take him at plus 700 right now. No, but guys, we got to give a shout out to fucking C.Rod. Look at this sequence. He lands the head kick, follows it up with the sub. I believe he had four, his last four wins were decisions. So nice to see him. He let this guy sleeping.

And then fucking Kevin Borjas. Kevin Borjas was the biggest underdog on the card against Andre Lima. He cashed plus 500 on that. admittedly I did not have a bet on him. I don't think he had a shot in hell. Yeah. So good on him. And Chuck, you mentioned that Luana Santos performance. That fight was a pickum. So, good for Luana Santos. But looking at the total strikes in that fight, a combined 16 total strikes in a fight is, hell yeah. It's pretty great. So yeah, we all enjoy that. Also, also, Mitch. controller for like 13 minutes. That's why. Mitch Raposo, two wins in a row. And I was doubting

Mitch Raposo. He got a nice win there. Although, also, also, Mitch Roperal for him. He got a nice win there. So looking at those striking numbers, you know, Nassimento outstruck him by 20 significant strike. He had to grind it out, but he got it done. He got it done. Bolognios Michael Aswell was actually a banger too. I thought that was going to win fight of the night, but Fili Oliver took fight of the night. If anyone didn't catch that, go watch that one back. It was good. Indeed. All right. Let's go now to topic number three, which is this is the topic actually I wanted to talk the most about today if I'm being honest with you. So for folks who haven't seen it, we're going to play the clip here in just a minute. Let me set this up and Chuck

I've got to get you to react to it after we watch the clip. But Justin Gatchy's making the media rounds after his historic win, basically, over Ilya, and he stopped by Joe Rogan's podcast. and he didn't just do it by himself. He did it with Trevor Whitman. Now, Joe Rogan's got a couple of hobby horses. One is a curved glove design, another is tie steel cups. I don't know what they're going to do about the latter, Chuck. But in terms of the former, there was an interesting revelation that was made by Trevor

Whitman. You'll recall, Chuck, that the existing UFC glove or even the one that they briefly flirted with does not employ a curved design. The pride glove used to, and it is believed, and I'll talk about this in a minute, that they can reduce meaningfully statistically. They can reduce some eyepokes. Let's look at this clip from Trevor Whitman, and then I want you to react to it. Here, guys.

So Hunter reached out to me three weeks ago, four weeks ago, and said he wanted to ignite conversation again. So we'll see where that goes. They did the right thing and tried to make what we had spoke about. You know, we had an MDA and we had a five year and they moved it to a two year. Took a lot of great notes, and I'm very grateful to be a part of those because they did go out there and use a lot of the ideas that I had. but they just couldn't do it to the level that I could do it.

You got gloves? Of course you do. Of course you did. They're my favorite. The difference is Trevor's gloves and everybody else's gloves. One of the big differences, let's see how they're curved folks? It looks like a hand. The regular gloves from the UFC are not.

They're straight, just like this. So these gloves promote a natural punching position. Look, and then when you put them on, they're damn near perfect. The padding is amazing. They're fantastic. They hit the bag with. They're just fucking awesome. Look what they promote.

So my hand is totally dead relaxed and it promotes a closed fist position. He's doing the internal strapping right now. This strap is coming from over here. So that's going to pull this in. As you notice, we got pad on the side. So there's no like all the other gloves. The pad is coming down on a single knuckle. But again, this strap is going to really see what in.

Oh, yeah. And then this one. Oh, this is fucking fantastic. Oh, my God. You don't even need hand wraps. This is so superior to the UFC gloves. I mean, the fact that this isn't being used by the UFC right now is

fucking criminal. We're going to get it done. I hope so. Hey, you know what? I've been trying so hard. I stepped away from like the business part. I'm the visionary now. So I got right people that know how to make deals. So it's right. And the UFC's going to be happy. We weren't ready. That was me versus Kabib. I take full responsibility.

Oh, I believe it. That I didn't know that you could do deals all these different ways. You know, they'd say what they wanted to do. I was like, yeah, that's not how. This feels so good. Okay. Now hold on. There's context here because this all sounds pretty positive. This came out and on Saturday afternoon.

I even think Friday maybe it came out. So there was some discussions about like, wow, we might be making some progress. And then Dana had this to say. We've been talking to Trevor for years. Rashad Evans, whom I love and respect came to me and said, hey, listen, I'm invested in this thing. You know, I want. we think that we have a great product here

and I would love to introduce our glove that Trevor built, you know, all those guys like Trevor's a genius, he makes these bags and his gloves. So we looked at all and I literally told my finance team get this deal done. Care what it takes. Get the deal done. They wanted like $100 million for the glove. how many fucking gloves you got to sell to make a hundred million dollars it's impossible so the deal never happened

but i told my team and denny the girl who runs that department is a brilliant woman brilliant she came back to me like cross-eyed like i can't get a deal done with these guys so i was already i mean that deal should have been done a few years ago i wanted to do that for rashad So we'll see. Chuck, how do we understand this moment? Is this just Dana? Do you really think it was $100 million, man? Like, is this just Dana, like, throwing out this figure?

That's, I mean, sometimes you negotiate this. I would say once again, I would say once again, we are not under the obligation to accept anything he says at face value. Well, I mean, if they're discussing it and I feel like it's going to get worked out. And obviously, like, what I really take from it is that Trevor Whitman probably felt, like he might have impeded this with a bad, you know, trying to uphold his own whatever he wanted to do

in the negotiations. Like, it sounds like he's had time to think he was like, dude, I'm ready to do this now and I feel like it gets worked out. I have to say, like, so tell me the difference, man. You know when they did the gloves before where they did their own design? What was the major problem with this? I know that we weren't getting the knockouts that, you know, and it was a small, sample size. We didn't get like a huge sample size of events to really understand if this really

affected knockouts or not. But what was the bigger problem with the last gloves that they were trying to do? Just that. There was at least some preliminary data that, but you know, to your point, not nearly enough to draw a reasonable conclusion. But the preliminary data showed that knockouts had trailed off as a consequence of use of, or at least the presumption was that they had trailed off as a presumption of the new ones. But again, that that inference is just, you know, It's not totally proven. I mean, if they can do it, because we, you look at Tom Aspenon, I mean, obviously this is why they should be looking at it because you have guys like him who are on the, you know, he had a true terrifying moment where he could lose sight and he had to have procedures done just to correct it. And, you know, and you're still kind of waiting on his timetable to get back.

But this could have been avoided if you have something like this because if you look at it, the way that those gloves they fit, like obviously they bend your fingers down, towards a, towards a fist. And if you look at like gone or even John Jones back and they are like the Miochich, uh, Cormier one, like you go back to any of them. And it's always a straight hand, right? And I just, I feel like these gloves and I've heard this from, you know, from people who, uh, who've used them like in Colorado. Like, you know, it's very difficult to make a straight finger, you know, to do that. So to me, I'm like, I'm kind of in the Joe Rogan game. I'm like, why haven't they done this before? But of course, $100 million, whatever this is. If it, if they couldn't work out a deal, I get it, but I feel like

it's a necessary step at some point. We're talking about the back of the head, but these things kind of happened, but this is something that you could try to curb and take control of, and I feel like that that's probably what's going to happen with these. And from everybody, have you ever talked to anybody who's worn those?

Because I feel like they love them. Like, I felt like the gloves the UFC tried to roll out. Everybody was unhappy with the way they felt. These particular gloves, I think, are more of a natural, like, they feel right in your hand. So that's the big issue here. So there's a few things here. Like the, the, obviously, the UFC went back to their old gloves. So, but I'm talking about the ones. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Those ones. Yeah. I mean, two things that I find like really strange.

One is that, you know, I remember Dustin Poirier remarking that they felt he didn't mind them, but that they were less stiff. Now the old, like the traditional gloves don't, you know, you leave your hand here. But, you know, it's a challenge to make. a fist at times when they're brand brand new. Whereas with those gloves that they had briefly flirted with, it was easier to make a fist, which is nice because it's looser, but it didn't force the hand over. There was no curvature right here, right, over the knuckles. All right, I looked this up. So when they had first launched those gloves, they had said that they had some preliminary data that let them believe. I mean, they didn't go to the mat on it, but they kind of

indicated that they would reduce ipokes. They never really went back to that after a later time because there was really no evidence it was doing it. And again, we didn't have those gloves long enough to really know a whole lot about them at all one way or the other. The one thing I want folks to understand is the Association of Boxing Commissions is an entity that I have very little respect for. But years ago, they were able to get and they paid it to be done the right way a study done on the, or maybe it was the Association of Ringsside Physicians, excuse me, no wonder, a real organization. Yeah. Where they paid to see what the effectiveness was of curved design in gloves in terms of reducing eyepokes.

And what they found was that there is real statistical relationship between the two. And what they said is, like I say, it doesn't matter what kind of curved glove you have, but any curved design is going to be superior to any non-curved design when it comes to limiting the amount of ipokes that you get. Why do I bring this up? I understand that Trevor might have, I don't know this. to be true, Chuck. But it could very well be the case that he has the best curved glove design. But dude, Bellator's had a curved glove design. I mean, Coker, I think, may have blown this up.

But when Rebony was there, they had that power lock glove. That had a curve design. This was all the way back in like 2011. The point I wanted to make here is, I'm not saying the UFC had to pay $100 million even if they could. I don't know, right? But what I'm just trying to say is we've known for years with good empirical studies that a glove, excuse me, a curved glove design, the geometry of a curve works for reducing Ipokes and multiple manufacturers, Sanable makes one, Everlast has made one, like a bunch of them make one. The only question I would have is, Chuck, I'm not saying that Trevor doesn't have the best curved glove design, he very well might, but we could have had a curved glove design a long time ago, you know? Yeah, this almost sounds like a favor. Like if you're

trusting Dana on the other part where it's like, oh, I know these. guys I've known them forever. We want to go with their glove, you know. But I will say that people have talked about it. If you've ever, like the current gloves they wear, if you've ever been backstage at a UFC show, like when they get their gloves, there's always somebody who's trying to break them in. It's almost like a baseball mitt. They start to manipulate the glove. They want to like loosen it up. And if you've ever put them on, they are very, have you ever put one on? Like they're very, uh, stiff. They're very, very stiff and I think that that's

another slight difference with these like when Joe Rogan's putting it on I'm pretty sure that the it's just the material itself and maybe it's just maybe it's because the interior of it is a little different but they're more comfortable you know and I don't know like when you see guys I remember

being backstage I think it was for the Damien Maya Markor it was Markor and his corner guys were like you know manipulate his gloves like trying so hard to get them broken in before he had to put them on I mean, it's just crazy that all these years later, we're kind of still dealing with this. But yeah, they have to fix it.

And I hope they do come to that deal because it's something that we're not doing a lot with the fouls at this point. But this is particularly one we've talked about it so many times over the years. I'm like, we could do something about this guys. So I'm hoping that this is the time that we see that. An I-Heart Radio experience. You end up with weekend gold tickets to Lassau Montreal. Thomas Rett. Mumford and Sons

Well here's my pride And here's my shame John Party, Old Dominion, Carly Pierce and Moore And the prize gets even sweeter With flights from Porter Airlines Three nights at Residence in Downtown Montreal

And $1,000 cash Download the free IHeart Radio app Listen to Pure Country for 10 minutes And enter to win Lasso, Montreal Every day you listen Is another chance to win Yeah, that's the thing to me

I mean anytime the glove debate comes up I think a common response that you end up seeing is, hey, man, let's get the refs to start enforcing the rules. And, you know, that'll solve the problem. And please don't misunderstand me. I agree. I agree. We talked about gone.

Like, whoever gone fights next, whoever that referee is, I want to see video of that referee in his locker room before the fight, being like, if you touch this fucking guy's eyeballs with anything other than a closed fist, I'm taking a point immediately. Yeah. Like, like, absolutely. I totally agree. I support that.

unequivocally. But it just seems wrong to conclude that when we know studies exist to show this, that having a technological intervention to also help the problem is a bad idea. Like, it's just not. It's a good idea. And it works. And I think, Chuck, if we had a world where the glove design helped and we had referees, you know, Johnny on the spot with it, we might save a lot of fighters vision later in life and also not interrupt the quality of these bouts. Yeah. I mean, it just feels like it's well past time. And I honestly, like, you were mentioned the Bellator.

I'd forgotten about that. But I remember now, like, that they had those gloves. And from your best recollection, did it affect knockouts? I mean, I feel like I don't remember there being a shortage of anything like that back in the day. The Bellator prelims for folks who don't remember this, where as close as you're going to get to Aztec and Mayan sacrifices in terms of brutality. I went to a lot of those shows at the Mexican sun, man.

I saw a lot of that. They just kind of throw them on a stretch or two and get them out of there as they're bringing the next guys in. It's like, it's hilarious. So no, I don't think it really affected that at all. But yeah, I guess we'll see in the end. I want to know what the figure ends up being though. Like if they do work out this deal, I want to know what the figure is.

I'll say this. I mean, again, I'm not here to defend things I don't really know. And I'm not saying, oh, you're Because I saw some people being like, well, the UFC can afford $100 million. Okay, look, I'll be the first one to say that I think that they should be spending more on other things than they are. But I don't know that it makes sense to pay for what $100 million rights to a glove in a world where any curve design can show an improvement. What I will say is, what I will say is for Trevor Whitman, if he really does believe he's got like the next revolutionary idea, maybe $100 million is too much. I don't know.

but asking for a lot is probably a good idea. How many times have you heard a story being like, this guy sold the rights to McDonald's for, you know, to use his name for a penny. I know. There's always some schmo like that who's out there like, you know, got screwed over in the deal. I will say this for Trevor Whitman, by the way,

like he seems to be like we've only known him as a coach, but dude, like he built his gym. Him and his son built his gym. They built the sauna that's in there. Like they do all this stuff themselves. Like he is one of those. crazy Renaissance fellows who like can do a lot of things beyond coaching like he's he's got a he's got a he's got a and I mean this is a compliment not an insult he's got like a

DIY kind of approach to things too like he learns the trade and then he tinkers you know what I mean and look at what it gets you know I hope I hope he does get paid though man I mean he's the innovator like he's doing a lot of stuff and like you should you should see that money at some point, you know. Yeah, for sure. So I hope he gets what, I just hope we get better gloves and that everyone gets paid and I'll say this. I'll end on this. I'm glad the UFC is revisiting these talks. And I'm glad Trevor is revisiting the opportunity to make these talks possible. If this results in something better for the fighters, we all win. Yeah, man. Yeah. So glad to see that. Chuck, before we get to topic number four, are you, are you as addicted, addicted to the cup as I am?

I'm trying to catch you where I can, but I just feel like it's been like Washington last week, the whole card and then this week was like a catch up. I feel like I'm not getting the time to like pay attention like other people. I know so many people who are just, I'm on a thread here in town like where they just, that's all they talk all day. That's all they talk about. They're all soccer fans. I'm watching. I can't say I'm watching them all, but I'm watching literally as many as possible. I saw Sweden get thumped by the Netherlands on Saturday.

So that's really fun. And I just want to tell everyone, all of our viewers and our listeners, the Cup is taking over the U.S. and only Draft Kings has you fully covered. The Draft King Sports app is now available in all 50 states and includes all markets. You're in on the excitement at the speed of sports. Sweat all the matches you love, all in one place with one app. New Draft King's customers sign up with Code Combat.

That's Combat with a K. Spend $5 to get $200 in rewards within 21 days. That's code combat, KOMBAT, in partnership with Draft Kings, the crown, is yours. Bet with DK Sportsbook, gambling problem, call 1-800 gambler or 1-800-My reset. New York, call 8778-8-8-8-Hope-N-Y or text-Hope-N-Y. Connecticut, call 888-8-9-777-7 or visit ccpg.org. On behalf of Boot Hill Casino in Kansas, bet tax pass-through may apply in Illinois, 21-plus, Wooden Ontario. Event contract trading with draft king's predictions involves risk of loss.

Sportsbook bonus bets expire in seven days, $50 in prediction dollars issued weekly for three weeks, expire in one year, redeem one with non-withdrawable reward. Availability varies. Predictions offer void in New York. Ends June 28th, excuse me, terms at dkng.com or excuse me, terms at dkng.c.com slash audio. All right. Let's move it to topic number four. I freaking love this announcement.

So I was a little bit worried because this show is in about a month and we didn't have a main event, but now we do. So during this weekend's UFC broadcast, the organization announced a middleweight main event for their July Oklahoma City card. And it's going to be, as you can see right here, July 18th on Saturday, Drickis Duplice, the former UFC middleweight champion, taking on the former UFC welterweight champion, Kumaru Uspen. All right, Chuck, I love this fight. I want to know if you feel the same. And more importantly, what in your mind as you survey this are really the stakes involved here? Well, it should be, it should be for a title fight, right? Like, who would think?

Because these are both former champions. And it has a ton of compelling narratives in the sense that Guzman, you know, coming up more permanently to middleweight. We haven't seen him in a while. But then you get Drigas de Blasoo, who lost his title in the last fight. I feel like both guys are going to be hovering around that space. They have not lost their footing, obviously, in that

space. But what do you do then with Nasredeen Imov? Like, this is, I feel like it's a complicated situation in terms of that, but the dude's won five in a row, and I, you know, in a meritocracy, he should be next, but I don't think you make this fight unless it's kind of for that, right? Like, what do you think? Do you feel like that this should be

for a title fight? I don't know. I don't know. I mean, on the one hand, Duplacy lost real badly to Chimayev, and now Chimayev is lost. So maybe it makes you think, hey, I mean, Duplacy already beat Strickland twice. Why couldn't you get another title fight? But I will tell you, if you lose that badly, personally speaking, and then you beat an old welterweight, I don't think it should be a title fight for Drickis. on the other hand true this is conditional you're right I think yeah on the other hand if

kumaru wins right yeah and it's a rematch between kamarro and sean from 170 that's a different ball game then he should get a title shot yeah yeah and I mean this would be a huge victory for kamar like he's 39 years old the guy has been around for a long time there was a point in time where I don't know if you ever got here I know I did where I was starting to put him in the I wouldn't I was never he was not passing gsp in my mind but he was starting to verge, you know, like kind of get into that, that space where you might have that discussion in the way that Nirmagamadov, you know, back in the day, you're like a Islam now to Nirmagamadav where you're like, you start having discussions because he had, what, five title defenses? In retrospect, a lot of his title defenses were, you know, it was like Covington twice. It was Mazvedal twice and it was Burns. And I mean, that's not the, that's not like the greatest resume in terms of that. So this then becomes the biggest fight for him. since probably Tarun Woodley, right? Like when he won the title.

So to me, and I, I've always believed in Usman. I know he's older now and he's had some knee issues and all that stuff. But dude, he's going up against the former champ who I think is still, you know, going to be a very hard out. In fact, Long Island can tell me I think they put Duplicea as something like a minus 250 or minus 300. Like he's a fairly big favorite in this. That's why it's fun though. Like Usman going up, going to fight this guy. Like I feel like he's got a lot together.

gain. What was he saying here? Minus 340. 3. Yeah, that's crazy, man. Right. This 340 Usman plus 270. It's crazy. That's crazy, man. Like, I mean, Uswana, he's a beast, you know, and he's at a lot of time. Like, he hasn't fought in a while. I think he's had a lot of time to kind of

build up his frame and, uh, and look the part, you know? Highly experienced. Yeah. In five round fights. I mean, that's nothing new to this guy. Now we know his knees are trash and that's a thing that you can't look the other way on. But I mean, the thing I go back to is, I don't mind Duplice being a big favorite.

And I think he can defend the wrestling enough where he can make this interesting. But the fact that Usman is such a good wrestler and still has a little bit of, you know, gas left in the tank. I got to tell you, this makes this fight to me fucking awesome. Yeah. I rarely, I got to, dude, I've been saying it. I mean, okay, I mean, I know everyone is, you know, most MMA, the vast majority of MMA fans love everything they got out of the U.S. White House court. But the point is, like, how often can they do that, right?

I mean, that's just, I mean, literally by, by their own. I was by the other day, Chuck. I was downtown. I mean, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, my God. And also, just to clear the, uh, they cleared the ellipse for the most part. They've got most of the stuff out of there. But just that alone took forever. So, I mean, how often can they do this, right? I mean, just realistically, they can't. So the thing I've been kind of harping on this year is that these kinds of fight nights where you're on the road and you've got a real. solid main event former champ former champ big fucking stakes involved this is just where the ufc in my

opinion i'll say consistently anyway you know month over month this tends to me to me to me to be to be their best product a lot of the time um and i really i love this fight i love everything about it because on the one hand let's talk about dupl c right so if he wins he might get a title shot chuck i can't say that that's wrong obviously who the hell knows but for me it wouldn't be enough on the other hand if he loses. Right. That's true. You would be losing back to back fights, right? You'd be losing to back to wrestlers. So like now, now everyone would feel like this is just a thing that we can just do to you now. And it'd be a basically a welterweight. I mean, I know that's not quite

fair. It's, Kumar was better than that, but that's basically what that would kind of be. That would be a terrible setback for him. Would it not? Yeah. Well, what you're basically pointing out is you like juicy steaks where it's like this is one of those things you're like oh my it could be catastrophic in that sense you know for a guy who was a former champion he was trying to get back there I like it when the stakes are like this

they're very there it's very it's very dire for both guys because I mean honestly whoever loses this fight is probably out of that like they're out of that discussion I don't think Guzman it's just really because he's long in the tooth though too right like he's 39 years old

I'm not sure what he would get like you mentioned his knees are fairly compromised. If he loses, you're like, well, that's, that's it for Usman. But, dude, if he makes a late charge, and all of a sudden, you've got Ollie, Abdelaziz, kind of his guy's all, like, in their late 30s, you know, taking up the title pictures here. But, but dude, that would be wild. I mean, that would be a wild, wild development.

And I like, I like fight. That's what's fun about, especially on a fight night, is that you get like a wild set of stakes like this. We're like, man, this is, these are careers now, you know, hinging in the balance here. The thing is, like, just definitionally, the most important bout is the one that either leads to a championship or leads something close to that, number one contender fight, right? So when a lot of times when people assess stakes, they, we do it too. You have to. Yeah.

We assess it on that level. And again, it's the most important level. But I have to tell you, like me personally for like my enjoyment. My enjoyment is not necessarily, I mean, obviously when you get to this point, it often is tied to number one or championship. But the reason this bout rules to me is because it's like, who are you? Right? We're going to find out. We're going to find out exactly who you are.

That to me, when there's like this, you know, when, because you can have, I've seen it. It doesn't happen all the time, but you can get guys who achieve a lot before the wheels come off. And then when the wheels come off, that's just they're done. That's true. Right. That is true. And I'm not saying DDP's there. That's definitely not my point.

but rather like the fights where they have to where that gets tested like who exactly are you well we've just seen it with like jack della jack della mattalana right or guy like that where it's like kind of cruising along and you're putting them up here and then all of a sudden things go south and now it looks like they're really going south i mean yeah and he had remember he had two fights in a row chuck where he was like you know grimacing and making these faces and shit things you would have never seen no gara do like never in a million So like, like, Nogara might win. Nogara might lose, but you knew who he was.

You know what I mean? Yeah. I fucking love this fight. You like the local. I absolutely love it. You like you. Does it matter to you, I guess, that's being dropped into, you know, Midwestca, like state.

Like it's still a live atmosphere, right? But I'm like, is it, uh, it seems kind of arbitrary in that says. Nah, you know what? Like Oklahoma, great wrestling tradition out there. Yeah. I like it when, when, when middle America gets, you know,

serviced in the right way in terms of like events going there. Like, yeah. Yeah, it's cool to go to, again, dude,

everyone loves going to exotic locales or even just big cities, LA, New York. But I called fights in Iowa, Chuck. It's one of the best nights

I've ever had. Like, yeah, because they're so behind it, man. Like, they had that Kansas City one. Was it Ian Gary? I think it was the Ian Gary

fight. Like, but dude, that crowd seemed so into it because, you know, it's just they're middle of the country, they're sports fans and like you bring an event to them. I know Oklahoma City, if you watch their basketball

team, it's, uh, dude, they're fairly raucous. So I know that's going to be a crazy scene. The fight part's not bad either. I know, I can't stand them. But like they but the fight card itself, if I recall, like I was looking at that earlier, I don't have it in front of me, but like, it's not bad either. They're kind of arranging it where it's

you know, it's not just one big fight and then some garbage. They've got a couple of other good fights on there too. Long Island Any thoughts on this fight that we didn't share here? No, I think it's solid matchmaking. Like you said, two former champions. Good bounce back fight for DDP, assuming he, I mean, he is a pretty big favorite. And it's a solid, like you guys said, if Usman can get the win,

there's an argument for him to get a title shot. So good matchmaking for once. You know what it is? It was Kevin Holland against Jacoby Smith. Is that the one, is that on this card? Because that's a, that's an interesting fight to me, too. Probably. I do think Kevin Holland's fighting on the OKC card.

So yeah. But the Jacob Smith is fucking good, man. what I'm saying. That's going to be a good fight. People should be paying attention to that guy. Let's see. I'm actually going to look this up now. So if we go to that fight night card, I can't believe how like, dude, that's in less

than a month. I know. They just announced the fucking game of that. Today's UFC doesn't cast as far. I know. Do they a little bit behind the curve? Are you comming on that one is Brad Tavares versus Mark Andre Barrio? Oh, right.

Okay. Yeah. I like that. Are we confirmed that that's the co-main? That seems like an out of place out. That's what topology has. so no, it's not confirmation. Kevin Holland versus Jacoby Smith, which is a...

Yeah, I dig it. I digger. I digger. Interesting. Jared Cannon Air versus Christian Leroy Duncan, which is an interesting fight. Tommy McMillan, who is the diggity donk of all diggedy donks, taking on Alberto Montez, Tabitha Riechie McLean, that's a good fight. Yeah. Yeah, there's some decent ones on there. Chase Super Mitch Ramirez.

Sure. Yeah, that'd be fun one, man. All right. Last but not least, we'll have a little fun with this one. The Dana White, Eddie Hearn Wars continue apace for topic number five. Pride Month, Toronto. Pride is an opportunity for you to create your own space, to celebrate your existence. IHeartRadio is proud to be an official sponsor of Pride Toronto Festival and we won't stop. Celebrate Pride.

Turn up the love and listen to IHeart Pride Canada, your 24-7 radio stream and the only playlist you need for your Toronto Pride celebrations. Pride is so great because it gives a whole bunch of people this visibility that they've never had before. We have a ton to celebrate Toronto. Happy Pride. IHartRadio First, this one blew my mind. Tom Aspinall comes up and Dana's like, I don't even want to talk about it.

Yeah. And then what he does want to talk about at the post-fight presser is Anthony Joshua signing with CIA to get sponsorship. So I have questions for you, Chuck. But first, let's hear what Dana had to say about old Eddie Hearn. Have you guys reached out to Tom Aspinall yet about maybe booking that fight with Cyril? I'm not going to talk about that stuff. I'll tell you something that's funny, though.

So AJ just signed with CAA for sponsorship and all that kind of stuff. Doesn't Eddie Hearn have a fucking, isn't that what he does? Aspinol signs with Eddie Hearn, which is insane. AJ, who's been with him forever, and they're probably best friends, signs with CAA.

to get. I just saw Turkey Alashik saying he wants to bring you guys for a peacekeeping summit. Listen, the reason I got into boxing, one big reason was I met him and I liked him. And he's made some pretty big things happen in the sport of boxing. This is his biggest challenge yet, that I guarantee you. Chuck. let's start on the tom aspinall side how bad of a sign is it that he doesn't want to touch it but he wants to spend time i'm not and i'm not taking eddie's side i'm asking a question yeah what what does it say that he doesn't want to talk about his heavyweight champion but he doesn't want to talk about his manager i think it confirms what we were talking about last week where you're like we've had such a problem with these heavy weights and you know for various reasons but we knew that there was a sticking point to this because it's It's an interim title last week.

And Aspinall not being at the White House, right? Like not being invited there. Meanwhile, they've got Tyson Fury and for no real reason other than to flex and say, like, check it out. We've got Tyson Fury. He could come here. We made it happen. That boated. That to me was like the ominous first sign that this was going to get contentious or strange.

And here we are. Like I don't know what these negotiations are like. Dana says that he doesn't, it's not him specifically, right? like sitting in and trying to negotiate or like do things uh he says that it's all hunter campbell but this particular one man it's like you've got now dana in a pissing match in terms of he doesn't like to take ls and when it becomes public like this this is what he does he basically it becomes like a personal vendetta and i feel like that's where we're at here and unfortunately for aspinall is he's you know if it was a if it was a you know if it was meant to be kind of a trolling

aspect by bringing in Hearn to be his manager in the MMA space. I mean, maybe he got this, this is why we're here, right? Like, maybe that's how it all started. But dude, once Dane is on this kind of thing, it usually doesn't end well, man. He's very stubborn with this stuff. So

it just feels like we're, this feels like the game within the game. Like the thing that we're going to have to pay attention to now is not you know, the for sure roads for gone and Aspinall too, but can we get there? That's going to be now the new drama of this whole thing. The thing that's really interesting to me is like if you don't want to be

in business, uh, in like even tangentially with Dana or UFC or whatever and you want to take shots at them like that's the thing you can do. You know what I mean? You can be antagonistic. If it's like, hey, I don't have any like, I don't have any literal. I don't have any literal business with them, with this industry, with this company, whatever, I'm free to do whatever I want. You can do that. But dude, if you're managing the heavy wage like this is the thing about like mma managers like they get killed and i'm not here to defend them at all chuck or where they're like you know they're just brokers and shit but the problem that people don't really face is that like you can you don't have to be a broker in order to be an mma manager that's a choice that they make and that is worthy of criticism

but your options with inside the current arrangement as an mma manager you just have to know they're limited. And if you get adversarial with them when they hold all the cards, how is it you think this is going to end? You know what I mean? And I want folks to understand. This is not an argument for me to be like, oh, just lay down. Just lay down. No. What I've talked to from really sharp minds is that they play a long game. They have a long vision and they play a long game about what they want at different ways and how they plan to get it. And they kind of massage UFC. They play hardball. It's they've been they definitely put up their limits but it's it's still a working relationship in some capacity right there's a back and there's a fourth this kind of a thing yeah but chuck does it look

to you like that's what eddie's doing back and forth other than as insults i don't really get that vibe no i don't either the only thing that like for aspinall specifically is his plan B could just be boxing, right? So, I mean, I don't know, I don't know how this whole thing shakes up, but I'm guessing that there's an element to this of saying, like, well, Tom could just box, he could leave the sport, right?

Doesn't that feel like that's kind of, whereas other guys are just MMA guys? I don't know. This is so different, but I just know, like, the pettiness, you know, that Dana can have. Like, if you start to get on his bad side, this is what he did. Like, the telling thing here was the question

was about Aspinall, and he just defaults into an Eddie Hearn, you know, to an Eddie Hearn story, that kind of thing with Joshua. I mean, it's just, that's, that's when you know that Dana's, you're on his bad side and this is where it's going to go. I mean, I just, I don't, I don't remember, we talked about this before. I don't remember another manager, budding heads with them publicly like this before. So it's, not to this extent anyway. Like, there's always the offhand comment, you know, where you're trying to negotiate it,

but like, this seems different level to me. Chuck just kind of alluded to this, so maybe not. But do you guys think there's any world where like, because you know, Dana doesn't like to make fights or announce fights or shit like that at the post-fight press conference? Unless he wants to. Yeah, well, sure. Is there any world he's just in talks with Aspinol right now? Doesn't want to give anything away.

So tries to move past it. But to your point, then he immediately deflects with some eddy shit. So probably not. But I feel like we're leaving that out. I just wanted to bring that up. That's a possible. Certainly possible. And honestly, if that's the case, that'd be great.

but it's also like, you know, are they trying to talk to him without Eddie? Because that also wouldn't be good, you know, like, and again, I'm speculating. I'm not in any way making a declarative statement. But the one thing I'll say is Eddie had a bit of response. We don't have the video, but we have the text. Yeah, let's see this here. And this was in response to Anthony, Joshua, signing with CAA for sponsorships. He writes, promotion and management are separate in boxing.

It's illegal under the Muhammad Ali Act, you know, the one you're trying to get abolished. absolutely clueless. And this is the thing, Chuck. He's right, though. That's the thing. It's like, to your point, right? Heron can land a good jab. Like, it's not like he doesn't make a good point, but I'm like, again, how does this improve Tom's ultimate positioning?

I'm just not clear on what that's, what that is. Two egos. I mean, it's just, it's kind of fun in one way because you just don't really get this kind of drama. Like, this is a different kind of drama than we're used to in the UFC. You know what I mean? Like, and especially because you're moving into space with Zufabobah boxing and, you know, the territories being infiltrated from both sides here.

And I, it can be a little fun. But there is, that is a good point, right? Like if, you know, if Iliot Seporia signs with Malki Kawa, you know what I mean? And Eddie Hearn says, isn't that what day is for? You know what I mean? Like, you'd be like, but Dana's the promoter. Like, it's, it is really a good response because you're like, what is Dana thinking here? Oh, right.

Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Like he's the promoter of, you know, Anthony Joshua, but he's not his manager. Like that seems very strange that Dana would like. Yeah, that's very funny. I mean, the church and state side of that. It's very weird. The UFC is so used to just collapsing all the roles into like their umbrella that they've,

that Dana maybe has lost some of the distinction that is relevant there. Especially considering he's kind of worked all roles throughout his life. I mean, he's done a lot of stuff, but that did strike me. I mean, like, Eddie Hurton's absolutely right. You're like sort of like, dude, what, what do you? what are you talking about? I'm the promoter. And then, you know, to throw the Muhammad Ali act thing in there,

it's like, that's a very nice response. Again, all promoters, every last one of them, they're all liars because you have to be, right? They just can't even do that. You could never do that job on a lie detector thing.

Like, you would fail miserably. And so Eddie is just another one of those. But I like Eddie's style of, you know, promotion. And again, in a world where it's multipolar,

I think this would be hugely effective. But, yeah, I don't know, I don't know. I feel like we're going to be talking out of quite a bit coming up here, Lou. I guess things develop, but it doesn't

this doesn't bode well, man. I don't think it bodes well for the heavyweight. Man, if Aspinol loses, God help him. Yeah. Oh, yeah. All right, that's our top five. So now we get to answer questions from you. It's time for DMs from dogs. All right.

First, we go to Brian Cool Beans. Wow, that's the worst thing I've ever seen. If Alessandre Pantoja is able to reclaim the belt. Would that make him the greatest flyweight of all time, Chuck? Gosh, because that's where we were at. We were starting to have these discussions. And obviously, the way that he lost this fight, he doesn't lose anything

really, because if he goes in there and he just takes it to van, wouldn't you just be like, okay, see, this is the dude, and he probably would have done that that time, too? Like, you'd have to, like, reassess it. I think he's nearing that space, but, too, Demetreus was up there a long time, man. I will say that I think that the division is better now, also the competition.

Like if you're looking at, you know, if you're going down Demetrius's hit list and you go down Pantosia's, I bet you would lean towards Pantosia's hit list being like, these are harder fights, like on whole, you know? So I guess it's probably closer than, it would be closer than maybe, because you have a record breaker in Demetrius,

but it would be closer than the records would say. I would be like he's in that space at that point. I think he'd be getting close and that would be triumphant, but I it's tough though right because that's one of the best champions ever he has a records for title defenses it's tough i'd probably still have them too but yeah let's see yeah all right uh from david underscore kersh 55 why do you think the ufc has abandoned the idea of going to africa i feel like africa is four to five years away from producing many good fighters and duplice versus oosman could help propel the african mcine

We know, for example, Chuck, there are native promotions out of Africa, South Africa's EFC has been around for many, many years, produced numerous UFC talents to say nothing of, you know, burgeoning scenes in the sort of the era of North as well. What do you think? I'm not sure why they went off of this. And especially like South Africa, because you can, I can remember when I actually, because I was watching this, it was when he and now is when Dana White, they were in Seattle. It was for a Fox show. Dana White was introducing Ronda Rousey as the new Bantamway Champ. They brought over the women's thing. It was this whole thing.

It was like a Nate Diaz fight. And he said, this year we're going to go to South Africa. This was like 2000, whatever that was 12. You know, he was like, we're going to South Africa. We've been having this discussion forever. But then, you know, you had guys like Ngano and Uzpon

and some of these other guys. So could you back? We've had like multiple come through. And there's always been this kind of flirtation with just having a show in Africa. But I don't know why. I honestly don't know why. I always assume that it's probably cost prohibitive, and maybe there's some logistics problems with, like,

the types of venue that they want and all that stuff. But I know for a fact that, you know, plenty of countries could host it. And especially South Africa, right? Because we've seen PFL go down there and host shows and just never happen. I don't know. It doesn't feel like it's been a priority, though, for the last decade. I don't really feel like they've kind of mentioned it

when you had the Three Kings thing going on. But it's just they've never really, did you ever feel like they got serious about it like they were really trying to zero in on it i didn't feel like they did so i one time interviewed um god was it marshal's lasnik or was it um who was the head of latin america jamie something jami i forget his last name oh yes i know who you're talking about though so one of the things that they explained to me was if you guys maybe 12 years ago kind of culminated the ufc was going to brazil a lot i think they went to like Brazil like seven times in 2014 some insane amount and what they had explained at that time was

part of the value in going to Brazil was they were trying to troubleshoot their way around what places to go to that were not super modern Jamie Pollock yes yes yeah yeah yeah I was thinking of yes Jamie Pollack and you know for example remember the days of john annick and Brian Stan commentating and then pouring sweat oh yeah there was no AC in some of these Brazilian venues. And so they also weren't wired for technology to be broadcast. They had to troubleshoot and figure out all that kind of stuff during that time. And what they had said to me during that time was, again, I can't remember if it was Marshall

or Jamie or what. But what they had said to me was like not only because of what we've learned here, we're going to be able to take this to other places that have some of these same kinds of challenges. And they had mentioned, I think, at the time, you know, Africa or even parts of Asia at that time. Yeah. They had said. Now, since then, Brazil has had a lot of.

new facilities. And I don't think it's the same problem anymore. But I, you know, ask yourself why they're not going to. Guillermo Cruz reported UFC is not going to Brazil at all this year. We're talking about the fucking motherland and they're not even going one time. It's site fees. Those places in Africa are not going to pay. Right.

They're just not going to pay. Like South Africa is a good point. They're not going to pay. Australia might pay. Middle East might pay, you know, some other places, but they're just not going to pay. John will pay. You know, the places, the weird ones that they're going to, obviously, that's what they're doing. I mean, they're going there because they're getting the site fee. Yeah. I mean, they're going to Belgrade and Baku where they're going to Johannesburg. It's not an accident,

you know? Yeah. So I agree. I think that, dude, there's so much potential in the African continent. And they used to, I mean, they were all, they used to be the big feather in the cap to hit new markets, like to go down, even if they, even if they weren't getting like back in the day, you know, they wanted to hit these new markets because it meant showing their global reach, you know, all this stuff. But it's like, I don't feel like, I mean, they're still doing that, but they're going to places that I think play ball with them. I don't think that they're just, they're not going to go do it if it's going to cost them

money at this point. Like, it's going to cost them to go down there. They're not going to do it. And also, like, I think TKO is probably taking a look at like, okay, you know, even if there was, let's say, a site fee, what are you going to be able to charge at the gate? Yeah. Abu Dhabi, you can charge a lot at the gate. That's true.

Arabia even to an extent. Yeah. But, you know, how much can you charge in, you know, and I'm not trying to besmirce the country at all, but like, you know, is the purchasing power of the average, you know, Moroccan citizen on par with, you know. That's true. Some other places. I'm not sure, you know. That's true. All right.

Question number three from Isaac R. Spooner. Where the fuck is Naserdini Marvel? Did the UFC drop him behind the fridge, Chuck? I mean, I just mentioned him because he tends to just fall out of the conversation so fast even though he is proven that he's there. I don't know what's going on with him, man.

I'm assuming he's next, though. Like, I'm under that. Like, it's gotta be right. Like, he has to be next. I don't know what's going on. It's a rematch too. Yeah, it is a rematch. And the first one happened like 205, right?

Like, so it's, did it happen? It was like a light, heavyweight fight, right? And then, so that kind of, it just adds to it you know but what is he saying here he was in attendance for he was at UFC 3 20 oh he was I remember I remember seeing him backstage and I was like oh shit they obviously brought him here I doubt he just paid then folks thinks he needs a gimmick like he has to have like a raven on you know start carrying a raven with him in community draw some attention but he definitely is one of those guys he's got to have a parrot like co-go

yeah something yes exactly remember that guy he was great dude I one time was on the new york city and some motherfucker had a parrot on both shoulders. Oh, my God. I was like, on those subways, man. Wildlife. I know. Yeah.

The answer is it was kind of funny. I did an interview. You know, I think they're called RMCF sport. It's like a big outlet in France. And I did an interview with him when they were with them when they were in town for the White House card. Yeah. And they asked me about like all the French fighters.

So they asked me about like Cedric Dumbay and gone and all this stuff. And BSD. And then they asked about EMAVov. and they were like, is he Mavov popular here? I'm like, popular. Brother, they couldn't pick him out of a lineup here. It's true, man. I mean, what are you talking about?

And again, I tried to explain. I'm like, this is not me trying to besmirch how good he is or what he is. He's obviously the number one contender, right? Like, obviously. But, dude, if you're a French and you don't speak English and, you know, your run was kind of up and down before it got good, sometimes it can be hard to break out. And, you know, and when Sean and Shemai ever like, you know,

having the crusades back and forth or whatever the fuck that was. I know. It's hard to stand out. I know, man. He, his, his thing is straight meritocracy. That's it.

Like, that he's earned it in the cage. But dude, he has no, none of the other stuff. He's not a star. He has an of name. Even though it's like that's the type of thing.

Yeah. I mean, you know, it's just, it's, he's tough. He's uphill battle. If,

if you want to play the John Fitch approach, you'll get your title shot eventually. Yeah. But brother, you're going to, wait. So that's what's going to be. All right. From is underscore he, Dern versus Robertson, Jesus, is this true? Is the first women's title fight of 2026? Is that fucking true? Did I not notice that? Amanda's been hurt and Valentina fought November. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Holy shit. And there haven't been

many significant non-title vouts either. Good question. Is women's MMA fading or is this just a slow year? That's a great question because I've mentioned this a lot. But dude, do you see how much time every each time they fight? Like, you know, Shevchenko fought in November, right? Like, what are we in? We're in June? Where is she? Like, what's going on?

And like, this is kind of constant. Wiley Zhang, she loses. She goes up, loses, and you think she's going to come back down to her weight class. Yet she's not in this fight. Like, I don't, it's just, I feel like these women, a lot of times they fight. And six months go by, like, Blanchfield finally just got to fight. But like, Manon Fioro, like, she just kind of fought. like end of last year and is nowhere to be found.

Even in Dakota Dachiva, like you look at her like, look how long it's, I know she had an injury, but dude, I do the rankings at uncrowned and I put, you know, like you have to write little blurbs for each, everybody in the top 10. We'll go months and months and months where it's like there's no movement on any of them. They're just not fighting. I don't know what's quite, it's slowed down for sure, but I don't know exactly why. I don't know why it's so hard to matchmake. there's no denying it's it's i don't again you know speaking of my like oh 10 years ago what would

be better flyweight or heavyweight to get rid of you know a lot can change in 10 years yeah i think one thing i would say that a lot of folks may have missed and the only reason i know about is because i um i managed to kind of find my way into the story or part of the story is that uh the fastest growing sport in the united states is is scholastic wrestling for girls. Oh, yeah. You've been sure this. Yeah.

There's a whole documentary that was made about it that I watched. I interviewed the filmmaker who, and there's all these stats to prove it, by the way. It's not just like a supposition. Like not only is it true. It's like true by a wide margin. And I think one thing people should think about is like, what's the long-term implication of that?

Like, where do they go? Because part of what's happening is you're seeing an expansion of high school wrestling programs for women. And then slowly you're seeing a bunch of colleges adopted as well. and in a world where that grows and that ultimately ends up potentially you would imagine maybe feeding to MMA you would think that the long-term

prognosis of women's fighting in that case might be quite good actually and so I think we have to have some humility about what it would be but I just don't know how you can look at the current game and you know and decide that it hasn't declined Chuck you'll recall that it didn't dominate the conversation

at all but part of the and I was never an objection that I raised but I definitely heard some objections from people outside of MMA that like hey how come there are no women on this white house card right was sexist for them not to do it and the argument is not that they couldn't have put one on there but like the argument that the only reason that they didn't is because you know there's some presumption about like sexism or whatnot i'm like yeah i don't think so i don't think that's true the game is not what it once was right yeah i mean and the other thing is how many look at the seven

fights they put on they all they all ended in a finish there's almost like you know a handshake we're going to go in there and leave it, you know, somebody's going to get carried out. Like, that's kind of the way it was on. I just don't know which women's fight you could have guaranteed that with. I mean, I'm sure you could find something, but like a lot of them, you know, they don't end in those kind of fireworks.

It's tough, it's tougher to find it. And I, you know, it just, they would have to have the fight that made sense. I mean, obviously, I think they would have put Kayla Harrison and Amanda Newn on there in Hartford because so, but I mean, it just wasn't available to them. The game has declined. Where it's headed,

a little harder to say, but it's declined. Yeah, man, for sure. All right, from Ryan underscore me, you, Vissen, Wissen, Fitness. Bro, just change your name. Ryan Fitness is good, you know. Yeah. What makes R-AF more viewer-friendly compared to UFC BJJ? Is it simply the star power largely due to current and former UFC fighters

participating more in R-AF? Could UFC BJJ benefit from that same idea? I've got a theory on this one. Okay, let's hear it. Partly the star power helps. clearly right that's a big that's a big i mean raf isn't signing all these m m tvs fighters by accident okay yeah uh so that's a big one but the other big one is dude wrestling is sprinting bjj is marathony or jogging or something like that like in wrestling you have shorter periods and it's a

fucking go true you're just constantly bursting into action and that's actually why it's so hard if you've ever tried to wrestle like the like the cardiovascular demands require these like explosions, not really through movement, but you have to wrestle, wrestle, wrestle. And like, think about wrestlers mentality, go, dominate, work, go, dominate, dig, work, move, you know, whereas BJJ, it's like you want to go when the time is right. And of course, timing is important in wrestling as well, Chuck, but I just feel like wrestling, it took a while for the public to kind of warm up to wrestling as a spectator sport, but it does lend itself relative to other grappling sports. Yeah, I'm with you. I do think it helps. You know,

it's part of their strategy obviously like these known guys you throw them in your main event like you get Maraub or you get arm on and you put them in there and people are going to pay attention because it's a side gig that they're able to do and they've had some crazy scenes you know playing out at RIA

I think all of that factors in but dude I tried to get into you know more of the spectator jujitsu thing remember when Meta Morris was a thing I went to a couple of those in Los Angeles and you know you had guys like Sakuraba and, you know, Cron Gracie. There were, there were cool names on there, and it was fun.

But they all ended in draws. And the crowd was, it could never come to life. It was bizarre. Like, it was, you know, people knew what they were watching, but it was never like those moments of, like, pure electricity. You know what I mean? Like, it's just, it's a different thing. You know, you got just, you know, minutes on the clock for a wrestling period versus

Meta Morris. It was like, all right, put 20 on the clock. That's exactly what they did. 20 minutes. And like, you know, 10 minutes. of those, you're not even sure what's happening because they're kind of wrapped up in a way with their geese and stuff. You're like, I'm not even sure what's going on under there

from my perspective, you know? Bro, can you imagine trying to wrestle for 20 straight minutes? No. You'd fucking die. You'd die. Like, it doesn't lend to that. Remember after he got up after his last one, his nose broken? He does like all these flips. I'm like, what the hell's

up with that, dude, man? That's crazy. Well, I mean, they're psychos. Epitamine. All right. This weekend, I'll be doing the crack. That's right. Exactly. All right. That's it for our fan subs. And so, sorry, what am I saying? That's it for DMs from donks. And with that in mind, let's now go into your fan submissions. You've got mail. Viewer. Again, one more time, morning combat at gmail.com is where you're going to want to send those. Best one all month gets a free signed poster. Chuck, we don't have a bunch today. But we'll go through what we have. Mike has is up first with seven of these memes. Let's see what he's got.

Oh, boy. Here's the first one. Beanie hat. Okay, mildly intrigued. Top hat, even more intrigued. I think that's a Rockies hat or? Yeah, Nuggets. And then the Scully, bro.

Not wrong. Not wrong. I mean, the top hat, I don't have one of those, but I wouldn't mind. How do you not? Dude, you should just be like the master of hats. You know what I mean? That would be funny. Especially with a little propeller.

That's fun. Oh, hell yeah. All right. Here's the next one. Back in my day, they fought. on the White House lawn. Sure, Grandpa, let's get you back to bed. Yeah, that's a fair. By the way, I like it when they don't, I'm not like completely opposed to the use of AI. I think there are cases where it can be quite beneficial, but I like shitty Photoshop. Can I be honest about that?

I get that you see the plat, but also you're like, you know, look at your cross-dressing ways in your old age. Jesus. Yeah, you know, listen, I'm nothing if not a pathetic little fucking loser. All right. Next. Do something not that bad. I can't read the other one. uh it says getting fucked to death by what does that say? It says doing something not that bad getting fucked to death by an eight dick walrus

to me those are the same Chuck yeah what was it it was like you would rather the walrus than to be a promoter in Pittsburgh I know that much. Yeah you want to be a promoter I was like I'd rather just die yeah throw me all out of a plane.

All right we have new stars in Tepore and Pereira and they're gone. It's true man. I know everyone was like UFC White House home run and I'm like okay don't get me wrong and I understand that sentiment but did you all not notice the top two guys loss? I know man. That's not great. It's a crazy story for Gaichi but it's a short it's like kind of like one of those short views right like you're like wow this is nuts but in the long view. Oof that's a bad.

We talked about on the show dude. That's a warrior loss is so bad. I know man. So bad. All right. Next Chuck Mindenhall and a frog. This weekend I'll be doing the crack. they're coming out.

What was his name? Tyrone Biggams. Was that his name? Yeah. Yeah, dude. Come down on these penis is Joe Rogan. Miss that show. Right next. Long Island Luke's girlfriend waiting to hang out.

Damn, bro. They're roasting your ass too. Oh, don't play the crickets. That's her waiting. I got to add the ambios. Okay, okay, okay. Right on. That's great.

That's great. What else? I don't always have a good rant, but when I do put the camera on me, once again, dude, I'm not even sure you had to Photoshop. you could have just used the fucking normal one folks would have known like i think you put in your uh your

your your plaid makes its way in here they can't cut the hell yeah that's a good one too i like it i think we have one more then that's it that's it from mike we have one more fan so all right and then last but not least run them cheeks he says similar to my last fan sub my wife found this at a bookshop in seattle and said it looked like something luke thomas would read i can't see that can you blow that up i can't blow it up but if you give me two seconds it'll pop up on my bigger screen here it says the pornographer. It's a book. Sounds like a pretty good book. Oh, yeah.

Look at her posing next to it. The pornographer. You know what? There was one that didn't make the cut because it was a little over the line, but I did see that. I was fishing. Let's just say I was fishing with an old dictator from back of the day. The historical figure. Yes, historical figure. Everybody would know who he is. We couldn't use that one. That one was a little bit. We'll save that one for the Patreon.

I guess. All right. That is it for today's show. Chuck, what you got going on for coverage, the rest of the week? Well, I'll be on the crack come Friday, as we know. And I definitely will have some stuff up toward the end of the week, some columns coming up here. Anything tickling your fancy in terms of a writing topic? Not really. A lot of this because, I mean, there's so many things kind of happening. Like we're talking, most of what we're talking about here, I feel like are going to develop in ways that we'll provide the columns. column fodder, you know. I'm going to have to weigh in on some of the stuff in a written way. Do you pick your own topics or do editors give you topics? I mean, occasionally, you know, there's always occasions where Sheen L. Shaddy, you know him, like we'll say, hey, man, if somebody want to comment on this, he'll talk to me and Benfolks, since we're the guys, and we'll do that. But most of the time, man, it's like you just kind

of throw out. I'm like, hey, I would like to do this piece on whatever's going on here, you know. But I felt I love the columns, you know, it's not many of the websites do that anymore, like have the voice. So, um, I'm glad to be able to do that still, you know, hell yeah. Uh, long island, Luke, what you got going on? Uh, I got a usual week, guys, you know, bet breakdowns all week, uh, prop quiz on Friday, full card UFC Baku, 9 a.m. Eastern start time on Saturday. So that's nice. So, uh, yeah, main card minute. Thank you. There you have it. Uh, all right. That, what am I doing this week? Uh, I've got a lot of stuff going on. Just stay tuned. M.A and everything else. Yeah. So there you have it. All right.

You can follow us on socials. You see there below. You can, of course, as I mentioned before, reach the show, MorningCombat at Gmail.com. We do have merch, morningcombat. Dot shop. These are the June exclusives. These three.

And then we also have the basketball ones as well. All of them are just this month. And of course, for all the fan subs, Best One gets a signed poster at the end of the month. All right. For Long Island, Luke, for Chuck Mendenhall. Thank you all so much for watching. We greatly appreciate it.

We'll talk to you guys on Friday. And until then, may all of your gains be loyal. This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human.