MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC Vegas 17 Recap: Thompson, Aldo Win | Canelo, GGG Both Dominate | Ep. 97

Episode Date: December 21, 2020

Morning Kombat recaps the final big weekend of combat sports in 2020. Luke and Brian discuss the impressive wins by both Canelo Alvarez and GGG. Is Canelo-GGG 3 finally bound to happen? Plus the boys recap a loaded UFC Vegas 17 card where Stephen Thompson and Jose Aldo picked up dominating wins. Who else stood out? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

it is Monday the 21st of December and it is time diggity donks for morning combat. Hi everyone my name is Luke Thomas. We're 10 minutes late and it's not actually my fault or even Brian Campbell's. Can you believe it? But better late than never I always say BC. Okay we are from CBS Sports, sometimes Showtime and always on your YouTubes. As I mentioned before I'm Luke Thomas. Man on the other side of the screen, my CBS Sports brethren. He is the king of Connecticut next to Apathy the Rapper. It's the one and only Brian Campbell. Hi, Brian.

Hello, Luke. I'm here. I'm back. I'm ready. Okay, my neck, my back, something with my crack. Thank you. You know, I probably had a much better introduction like 10 minutes ago, but good thing we got through all these ridiculous problems.

Excuse me. And we are ready to go because it was a loaded combat sports weekend, Luke. And our job as provocateurs, reactors, raconteurs, is to hold our best takes until Monday's morning combat. So I am so ready. Luke, hopefully you have not appeared on anybody else's channels or podcasts before this. I certainly haven't,

and I just, I knew. I mean, you can just set your fucking watch to you getting bitter about me promoting the show, but don't worry. I actually have some extra brand new takes for today's show, as I always do. We have a lot to get to. As BC indicated, the Canelo-Alvarez fight we're going to get to. We're going to get to the UFC's last show of 2020. There's a whole lot there, so we don't have a

whole lot of time to waste, which means we need you to give the video a thumbs up, hit that subscribe button. Thanks to everyone who did that for our brand new subscribers. I think we added about 400 over the weekend from some of those instant reaction videos. BC did one for the Alvarez fight. I did one for the UFC one. So if you are new, welcome. Tell your friends about the show. And by the way, if you want to try Showtime, the people that make this show possible, we would encourage you to do that.

30-day free trial. You can go check out all of their goodness, or you can go pound sand. Maybe you can give it as a free gift to somebody. I don't know. Speaking of gifts, if you want to try some of the merchandise, you can go to store.show.com. There it is. You can get a hat like BC's got right there on his big-ass melon.

But we have mugs. We have tumblers. We have shirts, hats, hoodies, the whole nine yards. And, of course, I feel like I'm forgetting something. But, you know, anything else I got to plug? You know what you're forgetting? Luke, you need to watch the Comedy Store docuseries on Showtime. You keep telling me about this.

I've got to do it. I finished it last night. I couldn't sleep. It was so good. It was amazing. I loved it. Thank you. All right, very good.

Well, without further ado, let's get this party started since we're already kind of late. We will start with what is the biggest fight over the weekend, BC. Canelo Alvarez wins, I think, what, your WBA, WBC, and Ring Magazine titles at 168 pounds. Not just defeating Caleb Smith, but basically, what do you want to say? Making it look easy? Let's start with the overview, Brian Campbell. What is your biggest takeaway from Canelo alvarez's one-sided victory uh i think the easiest one to say is that in this debate over who is the pound for pound king in

boxing and i've you know gone on record for the past year saying this is the most heated the debate's ever been a year ago you had four five six guys who had a case for it we've narrowed that case down to about four fighters but i think Canelo's performance top to bottom really showed you he's number one with a bullet. He has it from the resume side. If you're more of a resume guy, when it comes to pound for pound voting, he also has it from the damn eye test from everything, Luke, for him to be able to hop weight classes as he does and keep the same level of skill is phenomenal. Certainly his ability to move his power up, his ability to build up his body and take punishment. I mean, he's the bigger man, so to speak, from the standpoint of walking down and delivering the boom against guys that are way

bigger than him naturally. Sergey Kovalev, Rocky Fielding, now Callum Smith. The divide in ability was huge. And I think overall, Luke, it's just that this guy's better than he should be. I mean, he was a very good junior middleweight, right? He went up to middleweight. He had the series with Triple G. It was great for him to be able to have this other extension of his career now at age 30 when he's been a pro for like 15 years and show you that he has evolved to the standpoint where he has an absolute complete game top to bottom.

He was more of a counter puncher in the smaller weight classes when the speed advantage was a disadvantage for him. Now that he's the smaller man moving up, he's completely switched gears. And although he's the puncher, he's walking him down, he's using speed and angles and technique to set it up. Just an incredible evolution as a fighter. He's number one right now. And I'm not going to say by a landslide because Terrence Crawford's great. Naioa Inouye, Errol Spence Jr., they're all right there. But Canelo, he's freaking great, Luke.

And it was already his era commercially. And it's not like this one fight against Callum Smith is like the equivalent of beating Floyd Mayweather. It's not, but it was a great closeup after a year off to just remind us exactly who the hell he is and that he has a lot more history to make. Uh, this is one of the more special careers of our lifetime, Luke. And I don't think we really realized that the last couple of years. When I was watching this, I think I had the same reaction as you, which was this is going, I mean, we both thought, I think Alvarez was going to win, right? I think we both said that before the fight. And certainly I think we had talked about it. That was our expectation, but you know how it was going to go exactly. Well, there was still a little bit

of mystery there. And when it was over, you were like, how, how did he make it look that easy? You know, what's amazing to me about this, Brian? It's like he has nearly 60 fights at this point. I mean, right at it, right? Let's just say more or less 60 fights. And he's 30 years old. As you mentioned, he's been fighting professionally for a long time. Did not have much of an amateur background at all.

But here's the point I wanted to make. At 30 years old, dude, he's not only in his prime, but he has clearly gotten better. I mean, when you were watching this, two things really stood out to me in a very obvious way. One, he was the much heavier puncher of the two. I mean, there were moments where Callum Smith would have his guard up protecting the shots. Like, he knew what kind of punch was coming his way. And just the sheer velocity and force of what Alvarez was throwing would just break it open. So, which is to say, okay, well,

it's one thing to break it open, but then the shot is somewhat deflected. Yet it would break open Callum Smith's guard and still land and still rock his head back. I mean, this dude's power doesn't just carry to 168. He might be the heaviest puncher at 168. I was shocked at how much he was just physically dominating Callum Smith. Again, not from the length and the height, but from the force of nature that he was at this weight class. And of course, he always has good punch selection in the other parts. The other thing to me was he's always had to me somewhat underrated defense, but I don't know how you can't watch this and be really amazed at it. He was slipping punches. He was rolling underneath counters. He had such good

command of distance. He was backing Callum Smith up and had his backs along the rope or his back along the ropes, I should say, excuse me. But the key was whenever Smith tried to like put pressure on him, Canelo would just kind of get out of the way of it and not really back up himself. He always kind of just held his ground and he could do that by virtue of anticipating what was coming, getting out of the way of it, getting inside, and then putting the beat down on Callum Smith. His defense has gotten better. His offense is super potent. And when it was over, BC, the only question I could ask myself is, and we'll talk about who's next in just a second, but that's a separate question from when you think about who's out there at 160 168 and 175 and you say to yourself okay

who can beat this guy forget about who's who's gonna fight who do you really believe can beat this guy dude i don't know if i can name three boxers in those weight classes who can beat this guy well you know he shouldn't be this powerful that's the key a guy like kellen smith should be able to in a fight against a smaller guy moving up like this, go, okay, he's going to have the speed advantage. Canelo's going to be quicker on the counter, which he was. But the fact that he's quicker on the counter and can punch as hard or harder is ridiculous. And it shows you the time.

Look, Canelo waited out Triple G two years. It happened. It really did. He stayed at 155. We called it Canelo weight for a long time but what he did during that time was slowly build up his body to the point where now he is a rock solid super middleweight not in terms of height but in terms of body and you mix that with the precise timing and the speed and he's like the perfect puncher from that standpoint where a guy

a kelm smith who should be the bully with a seven inch height advantage ends up like Kovalev right ends up being the demure passive fighter because the quickness of the counters are hitting them and they're going I could get knocked out by this punch like I totally have to alter my game plan and go into a shell because he's not supposed to be this powerful we've seen guys move up in weight, and they have to be more boxers or speed. This guy is sort of putting it all together perfectly, Luke. I thought Sergio Moura on the announce team nailed one part of it well. He said that Canelo's patiently aggressive, and he hides behind that high guard so well, where he's constantly in your face putting pressure on you. And that pressure, Luke, creates mental fatigue, physical fatigue, because he's in front of you the whole time.

Yet he's not doing, like, let's say what Triple G does, which is work behind the jab the entire time and wear you out with that powerful jab. Canelo stays efficient. He's only throwing when it matters and he can score, but he's in front of you the whole time because he trusts in his defense, his ability to swivel at the waist, his head movement. He rolls with the punches. He's really just a brilliant freaking fighter that he can stay right in front of the bigger man, walk him down and constantly put pressure on him. We do have to criticize Callum Smith in the biggest fight of his life,

not being able to get off the ropes at all, not committing to his right hand early out of fear. The only problem with that is when you take away all your weapons to win, your only victory is going to the scorecards and making it. He made it. There's no victory in that. I do, you know, to some degree penalize Cal Smith and say, look, there had to come a point mid-fight where you're like, I'm not in this fight.

The only way I'm going to be in this fight is to fight. He didn't have that in him. We kind of criticized Danny Garcia against Errol Spence for the same reason, but the reason why Cal Smith didn't have that in him because Canelo was right there. Everything he throws is hard, fast, imperfect, and that's why we call him the pound-for-pound best in the world. I have very rarely seen this type of evolution, Luke. Seriously, a guy who can learn from the defeats against Mayweather and completely just, you know, hammer. I mean, look at this. He's the biggest star in the sport, you know, pretty much by far. I mean, Anthony Joshua was massively big in Europe,

but he's so big, Luke, but he hasn't had those screw ups that other athletes of his, you know, financial stance and his celebrity have had he doesn't have a drinking problem he's not you know womanizing for all we know he's not doing anything that's holding him back he seems to have really learned from floyd mayweather the things he should have in that loss not just that he had a horrible strategy trying to outbox a quicker boxer but learn the professionalism learn to keep your body right. Learn to, you know, I mean, look, this is a guy who's got a stupid amount of money, but I'll give him credit when you interview him and you talk to him. He's very humble. He's very

nice. Uh, how do you get this great? You got to just work at it. And I think that we sometimes overlook that part of it. He's all in on his career and, uh, he's reaping the benefits of it. Yeah. I mean, if you wanted to point to one mistake, and this is obviously highly open to interpretation, you could talk about, what was it, the April 2018, or even before that, I think, it was the issue with the Clinbuterol and the tainted beef. You know, again, that's a matter of what perspective you want to take on it,

whether you think he's totally guilty or totally innocent. That's probably been the one big blemish on his career. But of all the ways in which you can get a blemish relative to what we've seen from his peers, not that much. I will defend, by the way, Callum Smith a little bit, BC, which is to say the following. I mean, both of these guys took this fight in terms of who they knew they were fighting on short notice, let's say give or take about a month. Both of them had claimed that during the pandemic they had stayed in the gym anyway, so they were in good shape physically,

but from a strategy standpoint, they didn't have a ton of time to get around to it. But honestly, BC, when you watch this fight, even if they had a rematch, do you like Callum Smith to do any better? I'm not sure if this was like the best he could do, which is, excuse me, let me restate that. This actually might have been the best he could do, this actually might have been the best he could do. I could see a scenario where Canelo can just build on all regular successes he bit more and wait a little bit more things tended to go a little bit better but those were still rounds

that he basically lost I mean one judge had it nine to three and that seemed quite generous if you ask me I thought the 119 109 scorecards were much more in line with the reality of things so it's like you know did Callum Smith necessarily put forth the best effort that we could imagine him putting forth you know maybe not but does one really think that if he had more time to do this again he'd honestly do meaningfully better I definitely don't no Calum Smith is unfortunately a tweener on the elite level which means he's not a big enough puncher to be a destroyer and a brawler and he's skilled as a boxer but not skilled enough to outbox the elite

so he's sort of in that middle ground but one thing to close on Canelo his IQ Luke and this is where you know it's weird to compare him to Floyd obviously but I compare him in that level where you get to this level of IQ so did you see in the post-fight interview and also when the camera followed Callum Smith walking through the bowels of the Alamo Dome, his left bicep was jacked up. You saw that, right? It was like hanging. Canelo afterwards at the press conference said, we knew Callum Smith's left hook was going to be his most dangerous punch for us

when we engaged. So he purposely targeted with his right hand all night, Luke, pounding away at that guard and just focusing exactly on the left bicep. And he essentially blew it up and dislocated i mean there's some next level thinking in that right you know we we always say about floyd he's he's one of the rare guys i mean what's all-time great ability wise but they were putting gloves on floyd when he was in the crib right he comes from a boxing family he's punching doorknobs at age three for as much as we want to talk about the fighting smith

brothers right there's four of them they were all good pros canelo is part of a brotherhood of seven all of them were fighters so it's like it's rare that you get somebody who grows up in this game people like dionte wow the right comes to the sport at age 19 it's becoming more likely we see that than these people who grew up and lived this thing canelo Alvarez's mind is way far ahead of the competition right now. I know. And again, part of that is distance management. But now when you watch him fight BC, and you can just tell he knows what punches are coming next.

And it's like Neo in the Matrix, just sort of slowly moving around as everything he expects to come does exactly that. It's really quite remarkable. Which brings us now to the bigger question. We saw what happened. Let's pivot to now what comes next. Basically, if you're Canelo Alvarez,

you were already the pound-for-pound best and the biggest star in the sport. And, of course, I think Saturday Night solidified both of those things. So the question is, who do you fight next? Here's the choices that it seems to me, BC. There is a trilogy up for grabs with Gennady Golovkin, who had a big emphatic win over somebody who did not deserve to be fighting him, basically, on Friday night. Then you have Demetrius Andrade,

who engaged in the stupidest debate imaginable with Chris Mannix on The Zone. You have Charlo sitting at 160 that I think would be an interesting fight. That's one that i would like to see you have arturo baterbiev up at 175 pounds and you have caleb plant still sitting there at 168 okay bc what is the the right next fight for canelo alvarez it seems canelo is really interested luke in collecting belts and in not in a bad way, in like a good way, in an old school kind of way. If you're in his division and you have a title, he's looking to collect it. I think what I want to separate in that is he wants to focus on 168.

Part of what makes him so good in the ring right now is he's not killing himself to cut down to 54 or even 160 anymore. At 168, he said in the interview afterwards he's he's not he's comfortable he's able to eat he's able to be you know we've seen that in both combat sports when you're at your natural weight man there's a difference obviously he has the skill to back it up I think he's going to focus on 168 I think him moving up to 175 that time against Kovalev was kind of a targeted look Luke kind of like Roy Jones saying my dream is to get a heavyweight title. So is there a guy I can get it against? Oh, John Ruiz.

He's slower. He doesn't have a heavy power. He's more of a, you know, a busy guy. I can outpoint him. I think that's what he saw in Kovalev, a guy with a bad chin who's old and on the way out. I don't really think Canelo is a light heavyweight. He's a fantastic super middleweight. And him being

in this spot as a promotional and network free agent, I think he's being serious when he says he wants the belts. So that's Billy Joe Saunders with the WBO, which would have to be on DAZN. And that's Caleb Plant, who has the W or the IBF, I believe, who fights on PBC and also David Benavides, who had the WBC, lost it on the scale on that showtime fight canelo just picked up that vacant title i think those are the fights to make for him right now it's interesting eddie hearn the uh matchroom sport promoter who promoted this fight on saturday said in an interview afterwards that canelo came up to him and said uh something like three down two to go and what he meant by that was uh i beat three of your fighters already, Eddie, meaning Rocky Fielding, Daniel Jacobs, and now Callum Smith.

And two to go, meaning Billy Joe Saunders and maybe Gennady Golovkin, too. So it would be interesting. I don't think Canelo wants the Golovkin fight. I don't think he thinks he needs it. But I do think he understands how badly the fans want it and how much people are still holding on to the fact that, you know, Triple G kind of got screwed over from the totality of the first two fights, which I also subscribe to. I just think at this point, Luke, that fight's past him. Triple G in this fight, also in the Derevyanchenko fight,

I mean, he's slowed down a lot. He's got a great tan. He's in shape. He still hits really hard. But it's like watching, I mean, he's very slow compared to. He's got a great tan. He's in shape. He still hits really hard, but it's like watching, I mean, he's very slow compared to what he used to be. He's not the destroyer he was. You know, it would be a great build to that third fight.

There's storylines. It would probably be fun action because the first two were, but I think Canelo stops him. I mean, I'm saying I'm the, been the biggest triple G guy of all time. I want to see Canelo challenge himself at this weight class. I get your want for something like a better B fight, but he brings almost no commercial value at this point to Canelo. I think it's much more likely

you see him try to unify all four belts at 68 and then decide what's next. Do I go up to 75 for one more? Do I take a Jamal Charlo moving up do i take an arrow spence moving up spence trying to fight him at middleweight he was in the crowd on saturday a lot of options for canelo but i think at this point luke we can trust that he's going to make the right one for us as fans i mean he he's doing this the right way there's no playbook on how to be the biggest star in the sport but he's doing this in such a fan-friendly way even more than floyd was able to so i i give him that tip of the cap. If he wants Saunders,

if he wants plant or I'm here front row, let's do this. Yeah. I mean, Spence angling for a Canelo fight. I mean, get the fuck out of here with this. You got business with Bud Crawford and nobody else.

I don't even want to entertain. That's it. That wouldn't be a fun fight sort of in a vacuum, but like given where we're at, I was like, get the fuck out of here with this. okay are you crushing your bills defeating your monthly payments sounds like you're at the top of your financial game rise to it with the bmo eclipse rise visa card the credit card that rewards your good financial

habits earn points for paying your credit card bill in full and on time every month level up from bill payer to reward slayer terms and conditions apply so what do i think should be next well i mean here's the way i look at it bc the triple g fight to me when they fought the first time king mo really disagreed with me when we when uh he watched it but I thought Triple G won that fight, okay? And I thought he got a little bit screwed. In the second fight, I thought Canelo won. And more to the point, the adjustments Canelo was able to make. I mean, he fought totally different the second time around. I was amazed at his growth and change in strategy and his ability to implement such a uniquely different game plan the second time around.

I acknowledge that the second fight was close. I don't mean to say that there's no debate about that one either. Just for me, I recognize that I think the best case for saying Triple G got screwed comes from the first, not the second fight. That being said, BC, I don't know how you can look at these two guys today and decide that this fight is going to be even as competitive as the second fight. That being said, BC, I don't know how you can look at these two guys today and decide that this fight is going to be even as competitive as the second one. I mean, that's just speculation. Nobody really knows in the end. And I certainly agree that there is real market potential. I mean, everywhere Canelo goes, it has to be annoying that he still has to answer questions about whether or not he wants to fight Triple G and what about Triple G this and Triple G that. But I don't think that's the fight to make anymore. I think Canelo has passed him at this

point. I think he's passed him by enough of a margin where I don't know if he stops him, but I certainly think he gets a clean and comfortable win. And all that would do for Triple G is remind folks that when it came time for this trilogy to really be done, the guy who was better all along, even if you could argue in your mind opposite, would be Canelo Alvarez. It would actually undercut the value of the sort of robbery, or at least the questionable decision anyway, from the first fight. It doesn't actually service him to me. So if I'm Canelo Alvarez, or at least if I'm a Canelo Alvarez fan or observer, I also recognize that what I'm about to say is not what the market dictates. In fact, for that reason, I suspect it probably won't happen. But I'm going to argue for Arturo

Baterbiev. And the reason why I'm going to say that is because it's not that the fight with Plant doesn't hold value. Again, unifying all the titles at 168 would be obviously quite impressive. And there's ways to get it done without a whole lot of hassle and rigmarole in terms of the negotiations, given where they already are. But I would say, BC, that if you beat Callum Smith this way, can somebody really make the case that Caleb Plant has a much better chance than Callum Smith against this version? Totally different style, though. He has a lead hand speed.

He can box. I don't know if he can take Canelo's best punches, but Caleb Plant can box, bro. You're the biggest Caleb Plant fan there is besides his mom, so let's sort of put that caveat out there. I'm not telling you that Caleb Plant is trash. He is, if not the best guy at 168, the second best. I mean, this is what we're talking about in terms of where he stands at 168, but the ease with which, I mean, Canelo didn't just get by Callum Smith. He walked over

him. It was not especially close. And so I recognize styles make fights and there are reasons to think it'd be more difficult, but BC gun to your head is Caleb plant the guy to beat Canelo Alvarez. No, the fuck he is not. No, he I believe that he could last year. I believed it would be a really close fight. This version of Canelo now is separating it because the one thing you can say negative against Caleb Plant is after the Uzcategui fight, he just has not fought elite competition. They've been setting him up against guys he can look great against because he's marketable as a, let's be honest,

as an unbeaten white fighter who can talk with a great backstory. Right? I mean, come on. All right right so the last thing i'll say on this is if he goes the plant direction it's hardly a scandal if he goes to triple g direction you get it you know the market's going to dictate what the market's going to dictate but to me what saunders and triple g next next year you okay with that i'm not i'm not interested in billy joe saunders at all whatsoever i have zero interest in that let me just say this last point I'll put you back to UBC the operative question that I am working with and again this is just my interpretation no one has to agree but the only way I'm looking at this is to say when I look at the landscape of the weight classes in which he is reasonably considering

who stands the best chance of giving this guy a fight or even beating him and the clear and you can even say Dimitri Bevel if you wanted to do that. But the guy I'm thinking about is Baterbiev. That guy, you can clearly say, would be like, you know what? If Canelo could beat him, then you're talking about an all-time great at that point. That would be so phenomenal that it would be shattering in the boxing world.

That's why that's the one I want to see. So here's what we need for that to happen, okay? We would need Canelo to collect the two belts he doesn't have first at 168, and we would need ESPN and Top Rank to really make Batorbiev a star. Really just, I mean, look, better be Batorbiev, however you want to say it. He's right there at, like, number 11 on my pound-for-pound list. The guys, what he did to Alexander Vodzik and took his title, knocked him out, and retired him. I mean, this guy's a force of nature. title, knocked him out and retired him.

I mean, this guy's a force of nature. Canelo would have to outbox him. It would be a great challenge, but you need that guy to get popular first to make it really worth it. I do think if Canelo gets all the four belts at 168 and is only, you know, let's say 32 years old at the end of that road,

yeah, he's probably going to look at 175 and see, can I do this? He's going to need stars though. So that's why I don't, I don't shit on the Spence idea. Maybe not right now to your point. Also, I'm not convinced Canelo really wants to make 60, 160 ever again. So he would, he would also, he would kind of need Errol Spence to defeat Bud Crawford first, become that star of stars at welterweight,

and then make it worth it for Canelo to come down and wait. I also don't want to throw away this idea. I do think it's a short window for it. So before we move on to MMA, let me just say this. Rafe Bartholomew, you know him, my great boxing mind, my brethren in this podcast game, he always wanted Andre Ward to come out of retirement and fight canelo and in the beginning before canelo established himself at 168 i was like no man he's too big he's not as marketable as other big stars ward by the way going to the hall of fame in the 2021 class luke he'll be 37 in a couple months i think it's a small window meaning you have to do it next year but would you be down for that?

Ward, they could do it at 175. Ward is a legitimate light heavyweight with speed, boxing ability. He would, in theory, have a power advantage over Canelo as well. That would be the toughest freaking challenge of a remaining legend, unbeaten guy who could give you such critical value. And Canelo loves stockpiling these names on his resume right when Andre Ward retired three years ago he was your pound for pound king after beating Kovalev twice there'd be a lot to gain in that fight not maybe pay-per-view

buys as as much as others but just in terms of like did I beat everybody in my era that I could have I think there's a small window. And even though Andre Ward is back and forth on the idea, I think there's part of him that wants one more big challenge. It's an interesting idea. I hadn't thought of it because I actually rewatched the Vosdick and Betterbea-Vaterbea fight. Again, I don't know how to pronounce his name properly.

And I remember in the beginning of that fight, Andre Ward is like, you know, I left the division in good hands. These guys are, these guys are amazing. And you could kind of tell he was like all yours fellas, you know? So, um, for the reasons you articulate, not a big sales thing, uh, because I don't think his two fights with Koval have sold all that well. In fact, I remember one of them only had like 10,000 people there. It was not, it was not necessarily the biggest box office draw.

Uh, but that'd be an interesting name. I don't hate the idea. Listen, I don't hate the idea. I actually do not hate the idea. It's just of all the possibilities to go to that one, wouldn't be the worst thing. To me, better than a lot of other choices. But it's not my first choice.

It's not even my second or third. It's just an interesting sort of sideways thing of looking at it, sort of the way I go. All right, well, before our audience decides to completely kill us and abandon us completely, BC, let's go to their favorite sport in the world. It's time to talk some MMA. They hate boxing.

They hate us, Luke. They hate us. They hate boxing so much. It's like, dude, we're not talking about nobodies. We're talking about the best fighter in the fucking sport like what do you want and by the way i had someone reach out being like why don't y'all talk about kickboxing because people fucking don't like kickboxing that's why i mean kickboxing's part of the future yeah it's like kickboxing is for kickboxing is like brazil it's forever the sport of the future

i like kickboxing i was watching a bunch of it last night i was watching a bunch of joseph altalini last night i was on a bit badder hari got sent to hell by that guy right by joseph uh addict buoy who's actually a cool guy i interviewed him a couple times when i worked for glory i actually like kickboxing but the notion that like oh well if you you know the the complaint is that we cover a sister sport to mma it's like you want us to cover another sister sport to MMA that no one watches? That's what you want us to cover? Like, okay. I mean, that's a terrible idea.

But, all right. Forgetting all that for just a moment, let's talk about MMA. All right. So, we had the last UFC show of the year at BC. And we had the old guys getting it done. I had my instant reaction on the Morning Combat channel. And of course, a million other podcasts that I do to make sure to undercut this one. But BC, let's go to you first on this one.

Dude, it was not close. Wonderboy won that one. His face was fucked up. I mean, it was, you know, it was a difficult fight in the sense of physically getting through it. But competitively, BC, not close at all. What can you say about Wonderboy, and is he close to a title shot? Yeah, he's close enough. He's going to need a big win over a top five guy,

so I think it was smart of him to try to throw Masvidal's name out there considering when they fought a couple years ago, Thompson beat the brakes off him, and it was a dominant performance. What Thompson showed you in this one, Luke, is that even at 37, he's still a guy that will soundly beat the B-plus and B-minus fighters, but can he beat the A-minus and A-in championship guys?

We're going to find that out, hopefully. I think he deserves one more run. When you look at the totality of having gotten so close in the two-fight series with Woodley for the title, I thought he kind of got jobbed against Till, but you can debate it all you want. He's overcome some injuries. He got injured again, his knee in this one.

So we'll have to see. I just wonder, because I was so high on Jeff Neal coming in, how much all of these things Jeff Neal's talking about after the fight are true and should skewer our love for the performance Wonderboy did. I mean, Jeff neal saying he had no use of one of his eyes from the end of the first round on now he's saying did you see this luke this headline this morning he's saying he had like cardiac arrest during training camp and he had like uh uh something else sir i mean this is getting out of hand a little bit do you do you

know the specifics of this luke well i know he had a severe medical ailment prior to the fight, which had kept him out of competition circles for a while. I think he was dealing with a bout of sepsis, and it was very serious. So the fact that he could get over that and just come right back to fighting, and I mean, I'm sure he took some of his time. I've not seen the specific allegations, but would it surprise you? Congestive heart failure, he says he had. I'm sorry, I was looking at the story.

Congestive heart failure, he said he had during training camp sorry, I was looking at the story. Congestive heart failure, he said he had during training camp. How the hell was he cleared to fight this, Luke? I don't know. I don't know the answer to that. I don't know. I mean, these pre-fight medical screens, dude, they're not all that money. You know, they're something. I mean, they obviously hold some value, but it's hard to know where to begin and end with that.

I mean, I'm happy to entertain the idea that that wasn't the best Jeff Neal we'd ever seen by a million miles. And that, you know, it's going to take him a couple more fights before he even feels like himself again. Fine. But I'm not really ready to slander wonder boy either.

I mean, let's be honest about something. I was looking this up, BC wonder boy made his debut in 12, 2012 or so. And some of the names he was beating back then, like the Dan, I think I have it up here somewhere.

I want to pull it up if I can. Oh, his resume is fricking amazing. No one gives him enough credit, but also it's like he had, he has, he's had an eight year run and he's still beating top contenders. He was sitting at five before this fight.

He's going to at least be there for the time being, if not go up, maybe a tick or two. But this is my point. You know who else had an eight-year run in the UFC but then just got bounced out? John Fitch. Now, John Fitch, when he was around in the UFC, he wasn't the boogeyman to St. Pierre, but it was pretty much like, if you're not fighting St. Pierre, this is the other best guy in this weight class by and large. And again, that faded over

time eventually as well. And to to be clear Thompson has had his losses but to be eight years into the UFC's welterweight division to be 37 years old 38 in February and to still be as good as he is as nimble as he is you know is he as sprightly as he once was no he took a lot of damage in this even though he routed him and we talked about pre-fight even though his defense is still good, his chin is certainly not what it once was. Just understandably, the passage of time and, of course, the accumulation of damage, even if it's relatively minimal, will still have an impact over the course of your career.

But I want to just say, to be that long in the UFC's welterweight division and to still be beating Young Guns the way he is, that is extremely, extremely impressive. Now, to your point, BC, how close is he to a title shot? Well, he's still got a little bit of a ways to go. One, two more fights, probably at least. I don't know if he can beat the very best guys in this weight class, but I just think that there's another way to measure greatness. Eight years in one of the most difficult weight classes.

When you look at the guys he was beating early, I don't even know if those guys are still in MMA. I don't know if the Dan Stidgens are still there. I mean, Jake Ellenberger is retired. You can go on and on. Johnny Hendricks, gone. Knocked out Hendricks, yeah. Right.

All those guys, they're not even competing anymore. He's still there doing that. Dude, that is remarkable. Yeah, I mean, he stopped Robert Whitaker at welterweight. He beat Rory McDonald at a point where we didn't think he would do it that convincingly. I just wonder about Jeff Neal because wasn't he trying to take a full-time job during the quarantine to make ends meet because he couldn't get a fight or whatever? I mean, he gutted it out just the same to even have moments in that fifth round. So I give Jeff Neal a lot of credit.

I just hope he wasn't coming in as a shadow of himself just to get a paycheck, which sometimes can be the reality in fighting. But, yeah, you nailed it. Shout out to a really strong performance from Wonderboy. I mean, he's in incredible shape. He seems to be evolving his game. I mean, he made that comment before the fight that, you know, the Wonderboy of five years ago wouldn't even be competitive today against the elite.

So he's really added wrinkles to that karate. I feel like people figured out Machida's rhythm of the weird karate style, but Wonderboy's sort of been able to still use that to his advantage. No one's really solved him completely in that regard. But what he's doing right now is key, Luke. He's back in the title conversation. And as you know, especially during COVID times you just have to be healthy in shape and by the phone you never know when he may end up getting a title shot yeah to the point listen I don't know what what health ailments Jeff Neal says I don't take Jeff Neal as a liar you know if that guy says he has some health ailments I'm perfectly

willing to believe him okay fair enough but the fight before this bc he routed vicente luque now luque had some moments in that one as well but you know what i mean it's like dude you're not i mean vicente luque is not a chump he is a very good fighter and of course at this age uh wonder boy still beating him but i want to list some of these names that wonder boy was beating back in his early ufc run so this is him in the ufc dan stijen no sean burrell chris clements whittaker, who's now up a weight class, Patrick Ote, Jake Ellenberger, Johnny Hendricks, and Rory McDonald. Then, of course, he had the Woodley fights and Jorge Masvidal. I mean, you know, it's a different world, and he's still competitive. I just can't say enough good things about it.

It's pretty remarkable. Now, BC, one more note on this. Somebody asked me, okay, maybe he's doing well at welterweight. Could he do even better with a switch to middleweight brian campbell what do you think could his fortunes be turned with a bit of a weight class change uh i don't i haven't seen anything that tells me you know you're not maximizing your opportunities right now i mean he doesn't seem to be like he's a guy who kills himself making welterweight,

although I'm obviously not there with the sweatsuits on with him. I seem to like his reach and speed and having enough pop at this weight class. What are you specifically looking at, Luke, that moving up would help him with? Well, it gets to the fourth point. So let me use that as a bridge to bring in the conversation with Jose Aldo so Jose Aldo he also looked awesome on Saturday night I mean that's the best he's looked at Bantamweight maybe there's individual rounds you could pick out and you want to put the point number four on the board there boys that'd be great you could pick out individual rounds you

could say from the Jan fight or the Morais fight or something like that but as a comprehensive performance soup to nuts, this was amazing. And so here's the thing I was thinking about though, BC. As good as he looks, and he looked good, and I want you to say what you learned watching him. You know what's kind of funny? His fortunes are not really different at Bantamweight than they were at featherweight. I mean, consider for a second.

He had lost twice by stoppage to Max, but he rebounded against Moikano and Stevens, and then lost, you know, a decision to Volkanovski, but he didn't get beat up or anything. He just got outpointed. Okay, you're not going to win the title, but you're still going to beat really good guys. Then he goes down to bantamweight, and let's say even he won the Marais fight, and then, of course, he lost the Jan fight. Okay, he wins this one. He still can't beat the guys who are going to win titles but he's going to beat the other ones in other words he's in a position now where we're

still talking about how great he is how dynamic he looks but he didn't meaningfully like change his proximity to the title he just kind of refreshed the opposition refresh the challenges and I think we're all pretty impressed by that that's why i was asking a little bit about wonder boy but your thoughts on jose aldo yeah i hear what you're saying i think for all those specifically on the weight class change on why it's helping him so much is the guys are smaller they're not as long they're not as powerful and it's able to to really uh hey can we get luke off the screen who the hell's directing this show is this a j problem there we go thank you very much um and you know it's just basically like he exposed marlon vera was red hot this was a great fight on paper but he showed you that

there's levels to the skills and the experience and the expertise luke what's crazy is we're rightfully praising jose aldo and we're going to talk in a second what big fights you know should be left for him and is he all that far out of the title picture despite losing the title shot to peyote yan let's not forget that had he lost this luke we're probably sending him to bellator in our eyes right we're probably like right four straight losses is this going to be one of those sneaky financial cuts for ufc he needed this bad i didn't understand the whole tattoo on titi uh that that was a patch that he pulled off but i will say this um it's a badass victory the same way the knockouts of stevens and moicano came at a time

that seemed delicate and sensitive of to whether he was the same guy because he went out on his sword in such uh dramatic fashion twice against holloway i mean look holloway beat the piss out of him twice i mean you know and i i was really worried about him at that point. Those wins recalibrated where he's at. This one did too. And this is really the sign of a legend. I mean, I don't think we give even Frankie Edgar enough credit for his constant reinvention. This is a really nice win in that regard. And he's fun at this weight class. He's got monster power and yet can still pull out the tricks, as he had to do in this one, to really show Vera that there's levels. And doing it everywhere, at distance,

but when Vera wanted to clinch, stuffing takedowns, creating separation, and then that third round taking his back. I mean, it was just remarkable, dude. He is still very much a force in mixed martial arts in the bantamweight division. Maybe not the best guy in that weight class, but he's going to give anyone who's not a very, very hard night. The thing that is the through line for me, BC, that I just don't understand is, here's the one thing I don't get from the younger guys a little bit,

and I'm no MMA coach, so there must be some kind of explanation that I don't understand. But if you look at Jose Aldo and you look at Wonderboy Thompson, there's a lot of tape on both of them. A lot of tape. There's a lot of tape on both of them. A lot of tape. There's a lot of known ways to beat them. Now that's easier said than done, but I did not see Jeff Nealon again. Maybe he had a series of health complications. Who the hell knows? But Chito Vera was, for all we know, not in one of those kinds of Jeff Neal situations and was just giving the guy way too much space, way too much time.

And you do that against a guy like Aldo, it's like, dude, we saw how Max beat him twice. You saw how Volkanovski beat him. There's lessons there. Like, what do you do well? Okay, let's take those things and use it towards a game plan of removing those conditions under which Aldo thrives. These are known conditions. It's not a mystery.

And again, easier said than done, but it wasn't like they were tried. He didn't really try them here. It's a little hard for me to understand that. That's fair. That's fair. Sorry. Sorry, Luke. No selling me there a little bit.

All right, but it leads to an interesting question, BC. Okay, who should he fight next? I thought Aldo. I'm going to say this, BC. I wonder what you feel about it. Aldo calls out in the post-fight interview, I believe with John Anik, he calls out TJ Dillashaw, Brian Campbell. I believe, true or false, or you could say whether I'm right or I'm wrong, I believe this is absolutely the perfect fight to make at Bantamweight. And here's my case,

I want to know what you think of it. I'll make it very short. There's a lot of questions about how is TJ going to look, and nobody really knows the answers. Two years off, what about the EPO? What about some of the injuries? By the way, he had both shoulders repaired. And we can tell with Jose Aldo, maybe he can't beat Peter Jan and maybe some of the very best guys. But if you're not one of them, he's going to beat you. it's the perfect test to see exactly where TJ is and it's a huge opportunity for Aldo to gain some momentum with what time he has left at Bantamweight do you agree or disagree no I fully agree and I'll even add on top of that it's it might be his shortest path back to the title Luke because while all those questions

about TJ Dillashaw are right on I I mean, we just don't know, right? Could he be a, you know, stop-and-drop diet cola version of himself without all that juice, so to speak, or just the age? I mean, he ain't young and the injuries and all that. You know UFC would be willing to put him in a title opportunity because of the name alone, Luke. I'm actually a little bit surprised he's not just parachuting back in to a title shot,

given some of UFC's matchmaking choices. So if you're Aldo, this might be your only chance to get back to the title with a big win here. And the guy's coming in with so many questions. Aldo's been active and busy. And matchup-wise, I mean, look, if TJ's on point, the speed and elusiveness are going to be tough for Aldo to deal with, but Aldo's also an incredible counter puncher at this weight class where I think it might be Bull and Matador style that could play out very well for either of them. So I love this fight. I love two old names and

stars. You add in the potential for title opportunities here. I really want to know who Dillashaw is because Luke, you know, I was monster huge on him. I mean, I picked him to beat everyone he beat in that run before the drugs and the Cejudo. I didn't think he lost to Assuncao or Dominic Cruz. I'm not sure I've ever seen him lose in that regard. You know, I even have an asterisk on the cutting down in weight loss to Cejudo. But when he got caught the way he did, I mean luke i am a reformed uh thanks to you a reformed believer in this whole drug thing that like they're all using but it was a little bit shattering just the same to be like man was all that fake is he not that guy uh i don't know if he can prove that

he still is luke there's a two years off is a lot when you're already like 34 35 years old so yeah perfect fight book it um it can't be a main event on a pay-per-view but it would certainly be a spectacular co-main yeah or you could make it the main event for a fight night depending on how the calendar rolls out i just love everything about it now i don't know tj's willingness but if you're tj and they're not going to parachute you back into a title shot and you go out there and you fight Jose Aldo and you whip his ass, depending on the, you know, I mean, that's not a given, but let's say that you do. Dude, they can't deny you at that point.

I mean, there's no denying that at Bantamweight, even with the Marais loss and, you know, he gave Peter Janhel for a time as well. And then he has this win over Chito Vera. Dude, he can fight. He is still super, super good. Still athletic, still athletic, still powerful. I think he's making the cuts at 135 better and better each time. You can beat that guy and you can beat that guy soundly. They will give you a title shot at that point. The controversy,

the fact of the matter. I mean, there's just so many things in terms of your favor to get it done. And it just would be a hell of a fight. You know what was good to see from Aldo this time, BC? Leg kicks. He didn't overuse them, but he had a bunch of really good ones. Left hook to the body, right leg kick. He was hammering Chito Vera, forcing him to stand switch. Yeah, his focus now on the body, although, look, bringing back the kicks, even the kicks he was checking from Vera in the first round was very effective for him,

but him as a targeted left hook to the liver guy now is extra dangerous, Luke. I love this version of Aldo. I mean, you know, it was tough to see Peter Jan sit on his back and punch him in the back of the skull 25 times in a pool of blood. Outside of that, I've loved this version of Jose Aldo at Bantamweight. I mean, he's a man down there, you know, and it's got to be a hellacious cut. I always thought he would go up to lightweight, but now I think about it, he's too small, right?

That would have been disastrous. Right, no doubt about it. He's way too small. But at bantamweight, there's a lot of life left in him, a lot of life left in him. All right, BC, let's get to point number five now. So good or bad, top or bottom, whatever you want to say, who else from this weekend, especially from the UFC card,

because there were so many fights on there, was something else you noticed that you wanted to comment on? What would you say? I got a lot of them because this card, let's give them credit, they packed in a lot of names and storylines that we cared about. I was blown away of Michelle Pineda, Luke, that he didn't come out with this. Oh, fuck you. he's so boring now

i'm not trying to stay on brand being against his ridiculous theatrics for the sake of it but straight up after a thorough performance in his last fight which showed you he might be able to figure this out and be for real look he's in there against a dangerous dude in chaos williams and i don't care if you were not entertained, and yeah, maybe he didn't throw enough strikes, but he was the more tactical fighter. I never would have guessed in a million years that Circus Clown, Pineda, and Chaos Williams would put on a tactical sparring match,

but that's what it was, and guess what? Your guy, Pereira, as you would say, like an absolute J-hole, not respecting South America at all, you linguistic bastard. Really, what I want to say is that he looked good in that role. Look, I think the perfect merger for him is obviously using his athleticism in the right way, but also figuring out how to be more technical. He's showing us that.

I wasn't disappointed at all. I saw people saying he was boring. Maybe he didn't deserve that decision. that was a good ass performance this old guy on the porch with the shotgun loved it uh yeah there's no denying that that is he he listen he looked better in terms of the calculations needed to get a W at this level. But congratulations, everybody, who wanted to remove any hints of personality that this guy had in terms of his fighting style. Now he's athletic and okay versus maybe not all that great,

but capable of incredible moments of excitement and certainly wacky. Do you want him to gas out doing cartwheels on the way to the cage? Yes, that is exactly what i want yes yes like what do you prefer you've got a better fighter now okay but he's not that much better and he's a lot more boring that's what you want bc sorry i had to turn off the dehumidifier first of all don't tell me my business devil woman but no, I want him to try to be as great as he can be. Obviously, I don't want him to be boring or take away some of the excitement. I just want him to figure out how to merge that excitement into moves that actually can help you win a fight.

Rather than just, I have an awesome personality and I will show it to you. Like, you can show me that during the weigh-in. When it's fight night, show me that you're here to win. All right? If not, then go somewhere else. Go take Chri's uh 48 billion views uh of the fight okay please BC is Greg Hardy a good heavyweight or not he might be Shane Carwin now look okay because for one round he's like everybody on the planet watched that first round of him against Marcin Tybura and we're like oh my god he's way better than I give him credit.

He has evolved at such a rapid pace. Shout out to Sugar Rashad Evans, who trains with him a lot. And then, you know, then he completely pulled a Carwin versus Lesnar and not only gassed out, but just showed remedial qualities on the ground. I mean, look, lost in this is the fact that Marcin Tybura is somehow 4-0 this calendar year, right? We don't talk about him in the Kevin Holland, Kamzat Shumayev conversations. And you could have won a lot of money on that bet. But that's a bad loss for Greg Hardy. And I know that people may say his last win, he kind of faded a bit before winning that.

But this is a bad fade, Luke. He's five minutes off right now. he's got to figure this out uh on the feet he looked awesome i mean there's just no denying he looked very very good he was if that fight had stayed on the feet bc for another round i honestly think he would have stopped taibora i really believe that or you know gotten some kind of 10-8 round or something. I mean, he was, there was a major gap between them on the feet. And then the second round, once he ended up underneath and immediately Tybura went for that crossed wrist control, he was donezo. He had no ability to fight back. Now, you know, there was a lot of shots to the back of the head from Tybura, which I think deserves to be acknowledged. But I

watched for preparation for today, I went back and I watched this morning. What was the fight before this one? The Maurice Green fight, right? It was the same kind of thing a little bit, where on the feet he looked way better than Maurice Green. And then on the ground, he ended up on top because I think he knocked him down or Maurice Green pulled or something.

He had good control on top for the most part. So it's not like his ground game in totality is terrible his striking is very good and on top against most heavyweights he's probably gonna have enough to keep his balance or avoid the worst of things but if he gets put on his back holy shit man he looks like a wrestler from 2003 where these guys were just getting in to MMA from collegiate wrestling and they had dude he looked like Art Jimerson. Come on, dude. He looked worse than that.

I mean, seriously. Just give him the one boxing glove and call it a day. It was alarming to me how different it was. And people always say, like, how long does it take to get good at the ground game? Dude, some people never do. Like, you could train your whole life and not necessarily be all that good. I don't know how long it's going to take him. But here's what I'll say. On the feet, Dude, Greg Hardy has, he's as good as anyone. Well,

I want to go to anyone. He is very, very capable of winning fights at an elite level in the UFC on the feet. I think that is true. But if you've got this kind of weakness where you're like regional MMA level on the ground, off of your back, dude, you have no hope. The one thing I will say for him that deserves to be still a little bit of an asterisk over the whole thing is I was trying to get a list of everyone who has made their pro debut in the UFC. And I know he fought Contender Series, but I'm going to call that UFC. And the answer there is it's not a great list, dude.

I mean, you got some of the older guys, like I think Tito Ortiz maybe, or BJ Penn or something. But the other ones, dude, like they don't really necessarily turn out to be all that awesome, like Amir Sadala. Your best case, BC, is going to be like a Matt Mitrione, who had some good wins, right? I mean, he beat Gabriel Gonzaga. You know, he had some moments in the Ultimate fighting championship, but it took him about four or five years to get there. Now Hardy's been doing this two, three years. If you want to count the amateurs, he still has a long way to go. And again, on the feet, he has really looked good, but Jesus titty fucking Christ. I mean, on the ground, that is such a liability. Anybody watching that is going to

look at him and say, dude, we're going to get your ass from now until eternity until you figure that out. And he has a long, long, long way to go. So if you're on the list of dudes who made their debut in the UFC, history shows you

can get better for sure. You can even beat good guys guys but your ceiling is somewhat limited did you just say titty effing my savior like that just took anything i've ever done or said on this show purposely or by accident in like it's one of my favorite sayings actually so there you go god i'm offended by you yeah yeah he he's got to figure this out luke uh by the way tabura sent him to hell in the interview afterwards he's like i guess with everything hardy was saying i should call out tyson fury and anthony well anthony joshua right now oh yeah i mean you can see why he was saying it now like on the feet not that he would beat those guys but but like, all right, on the feet, you know, he's got a little razzle-dazzle for sure.

I'll give him that. Greg Hardy against Jake Paul in boxing. Who you got, Luke? Yeah, there's that. Last but not least, we have to make a mention before we move on to the DMs from Donks. What about Marlon Marais, dude? He's in a bad spot.

That was a devastating loss, I thought. What did you make of what was... Not only did what go wrong for him on Saturday, but you see, what has gone wrong for him generally? I mean, look, he was a killer entering that Cejudo fight, and he looked great in the opening round, and I think, you know, I've actually talked to him about that fight, and he says, you know, I kind of went too aggressive

and didn't gas out he says, you know, I kind of went too aggressive and didn't gas out, but, you know, was stamina reduced enough for Cejudo to take over and beat me? And, you know, he thought he had learned from that. Well, look, I thought he beat Jose Aldo. It was close, but I thought, you know, he had a better third round, especially those last couple of minutes, and I thought he won that. He still showed you that he's super elite, but what's happened since then, Luke? I want to make sure I have all my uh my facts straight for more limerice yeah so since that aldo fight okay

he got he got spinning back kicked by cory sanhagen and now he got stopped in the first round by font um right yeah it's bad when you stockpile in in in succession stoppage defeats against elite guys because it's pretty damning to show you that you may no longer be elite he He's got something to figure out here, Luke. It's going to, it could be a long road back given how competitive this Bantamweight division is. But, uh, uh, this one, I think even more than the other ones showed you that, that maybe something deeper than, you know, strategy or, or stamina here is off. I'm not sure what it is, Luke. Yeah. I don't know what it is either. And folks who will be like, oh, what about USADA? Dude, his physique hasn't changed a bit

since coming over from World Series of Fighting. If anything, the guy looks more shredded and he changed camps. You know, I don't know what the answer is either, BC, only I think he does and the people around him, but it seems to me like taking a bit of a break, dialing back the competition. Well, since he got to UFC,c let's be honest that split decision

to a sun tzau which by the way he he avenged by first round submission was a flip the coin he took a split decision over dodson he stopped aljo in the first round with a knee he knocked out jimmy rivera i mean look he he proved that he's a monster luke and right and uh something happened along the way i don't know if he's not evolving anymore i don't know what the issue is but he seems to be coming back too quick, and when you stockpile big losses in a short time, it really messes with your standing and your financial bottom line. Yeah, taking some time, dialing back the competition,

figuring out another approach, not changing everything that he does, but, you know, retooling some things, I think, would get him to a different place. All right, so those are our top five topics. Let's now get to, uh, where you get to ask us questions on Instagram. It's time now for DMS from dogs.

He haul. All right. So I've not seen these. Let's pull them up. All right. Uh, from at Liam, we in Burge live.

No, excuse me. Liam Vineburg Live. That's not the one I see on the screen, Luke. Well, that's the one they sent me, motherfucker. Jay, can we bring you in here real quick, Jay? That is from last week. What the fuck is happening, Jay? Normally we don't bring in a guy just to shit on him, Jay,

but what's going on today? Today's an S show. What's happening here? Today is a little bit uh of an s show as you put it um those are the questions that were in there for me uh though this one this one is not on me so um typically jay's a great leader it's so it's never his fault right well you know i'm not throwing anyone else under the bus i'm just saying it ain't me listen uh listen listenberg, it's your fault today, guy. You understand that? Yeah.

Yeah, no, some of those other things, those were definitely my fault. Well, I'm just going to read the questions that were sent to me from the producer. That's fine. I just jumped back in, and we'll see what we got. Let's see if we can match it now. There's no escape from these technical issues, that's for sure. By the way, did you realize, I didn't realize there's a senator named Ron Johnson. He's like Trump's biggest supporter.

He's also like a major conspiracy theorist. I did. That's the problem. When we try to find Ron Johnson, everything comes up with that guy. It's like, we're not looking for the- Not the same guy who raped Jay, but different. Jesus. Are you getting mad at me about the titty fucking comment?

Good Lord. By rape, I mean financially, Luke, not necessarily physically. Yes, not physically. Not necessarily. Yes. All right. Well, there's the clown car that happens behind the scenes. I'll try to read these out, BC.

All right. Again, not the right fucking question on the screen at all, but who cares about getting the details right? As an MMA fan primarily, the Canelo-Smith fight was so enjoyable to watch, and I believe a big factor was because of the lack of clinching in the fight. BC, what is your opinion on clinching in boxing and why it happens in some fights all the time

and others not at all? Well, it depends on, you know, styles make fights, the old cliche, but it's true. There are fighters who use clinching for their advantage. Why do people hate John Ruiz when he was heavyweight champion 20 years ago? Because he made the entire fight one punch and clinch. Second half of Vladimir Klitschko's career,

when we always suspected that the chin could be suspect, he would land the big jab, then clinch you. It can slow the clock down. It can slow down a fighter who's quicker than you. I mean, Evander Holyfield used the hit and clinch method on Mike Tyson, you know, perfectly. Although obviously he let his hands go a little bit more on the inside and he led with that ball dome to set up those cuts. But yes, Luke, it can be overdone. You need a referee who is not only willing to get in there physically and separate them, but one with balls to not let the fighters dictate that, to clean it up a little bit. I do think there is some strategy and it's certainly in boxing. It's

part of the game if you get hurt. In fact, we criticize the guys who get hurt, but don't know when to clinch, don't know when to buy themselves some time. Remember when Floyd Mayweather got rocked by Shane Mosley in that second round? He grabbed onto Shane's arm and didn't let go of it. I mean, it's part of the game. I like it when it's not there. You love it when a great fight happens and you go, holy crap, I don't even remember there being a clinch. You just have to have a referee that can prevent guys from abusing it. But I do agree, if you're an outsider looking in on boxing, which thankfully, Luke, we have.

For all the people that hate MK talking about boxing, it should be a separate show. You know, we do have a separate show that's just about MMA. It's called the Luke Thomas Sunday Digest Live Chat. And it really, it's great. I'm sure it's great. But I will tell you that I am happy that a lot of MMA fans are watching boxing because we're getting hyped up for the big fights.

And no clenching is a better view, Luke, overall. But there is a strategic need for it at times. Offensively and defensively. You can hang on when you get rocked. You can punch and use it to smother. There's all kinds of ways where it can be beneficial to you. In this case, you wouldn't imagine a scenario where Canelo would want to do it.

You would imagine one where Smith would want to do it. But also, if you can get inside control and create frames, it's going to be hard for them to do that. You can break it off. So also, clinch breaking, another part of the skill, depending on one's perspective. In fact, clinch breaking was how, among many other things, how Holly Holm knocked out Ronda Rousey.

Rousey tried to, you know, get her arm or collar tie, and you can see her kind of fighting on the inside, pushed her off, head kicked her, and that was all she wrote. All right, from atmtboobl. Popularity notwithstanding, popularity notwithstanding, which set of brothers had the better career, Diaz or Pettis? Popularity not an issue. I think on the basis of the UFC championship alone,

it has to be Pettis. Well, I mean, Sergio's been good but not great right good pretty good pretty damn good at times pretty damn good not great right but I mean the Diaz's have also been mountaintop shit shows you know early Diaz brother early Nick was great right uh Connor version of Nate was was great but um but I get okay we're not talking popularity. We're not talking about pay-per-view buys. Okay, but here's the thing. You can say popularity doesn't matter, but the paychecks still do. And, of course, that's a function of popularity,

but it still kind of matters because part of the reason they take bouts the way they do is for maximum financial effect. They've been in bigger fights, both of them. All right, but how much, I think this is the debate. How much are we going to overvalue Pettis winning the UFC championship? Did he have any title defenses? Gilbert Melendez. Okay, so a title win and one defense.

Did he ever win the WEC belt, or did Henderson have it? I think he did win that. I'll double check, but I believe he beat that. Because I was going to say, how much are we overvaluing it when Nick has been the Strikeforce champion and Nate, while having never held a belt, losing his one title opportunity. I mean, look, when you go up there and fight Conor McGregor, who was right there at the top of the pound-for-pound rankings,

and you beat him, I know there was a weight disparity, but still it's pretty damn big. So it's not that Nate is devoid of big wins. If Pettis has the WEC reign and a UFC reign, then I think you got it. Well, here's the thing. He took, he took titles.

Big Pettis took titles off of Benson twice. So he beat him at WC 53, the last WEC event. And that's when he won the championship. But then he goes to UFC and loses to Clay Guida immediately. Right? First fight after he beats Benson in 2013 for the UFC title. And then he submitted via guillotine choke Gilbert Melendez.

That was a totally legitimate win. That was six years ago. And then he lost three in a row after that. And it's like, you know, the belts matter. But I don't know. If you're asking the totality of the two, both of them have been in bigger fights. I think both of them, you in bigger fights i think both of them you know collectively have bigger wins that's my opinion but i would go diaz anthony has a better career

in terms of up like the highest thing he reached but the like sergio has done well to your point but he hasn't like won anything special yeah you're right i was over i'm overvaluing that that the look let's break it down nick versus anthony who has had the better non-popularity or money who has had the more distinguished career i guess it's a push in some ways right i mean nick diaz was great in the beginning so nick's wins here he's got a lot of good ones but he's got a lot from different era nate definitely beat sergio by far so yeah the ds brothers even if nate even if nick is is dead even with anthony they win this debate i'm wrong i'm dead wrong i don't know i don't know like what is nick's best win is it bj penn ufc 137

uh yeah yeah then he oh god he turned his face into hamburger yeah that was a great fight uh because his other wins i mean these are his other wins, right? Josh Neer, who was good at the time because that was 2006, the original The Dentist. And then in Elite XC, Thomas Denny, Frank Shamrock, Scott Smith, Marius Zeromskis, Hayato Sakurai, KJ Nunes. Paul Daly, bro. Paul Daly.

And he's got Paul Daly. Those were his last two wins was Paul Daly and BJ Penn. Anthony's got better wins than that. Yeah, and Anthony did beat Wonderboy. I mean mean let's give him that credit right yep i went up a weight class and beat his ass it's true yep and he hurt tony in that fight that was good see that was a fun ass fight people never talk about that fight ferguson pettis that was fun right it's a good point you know what i don't know i don't know i think pettis is probably your dominant performer in terms of just elite wins than the other ones,

but the two Diaz brothers together have been in really big fights. All right, what about Nate? What are we missing on Nate here? He's got the Conor McGregor win. What else has he got? Let's pull Nate's resume up here. I think he beat Cowboy, right? He beat the fuck out of Cowboy.

He was slapping him around, giving him the finger. Conor McGregor, Michael Johnson, he beat Anthony. Oh, you know what? He beat Anthony Pettis Cowboy. He was slapping him around, giving him the finger. Conor McGregor, Michael Johnson. He beat Anthony. Oh, you know what? He beat Anthony Pettis. I forgot about that at UFC 241. Gray Maynard, Jim Miller, Donald Cerrone, Takanori, Gomi, Marcus Davis, Rory Markham, Melvin Gillard, Josh Neer, Kurt Pellegrino, Alvin Robinson Jr.,

Al Sonsal, and then Manny Gamburian. It's a great question. It's a great question. It's a great question. It really is. Anthony, top heavy in that family. I mean, Sergio's got a big win in UFC, though. He's got one big one, right? Didn't he beat Benavidez, I believe?

I think he beat Benavidez. Let's move it along if we can here to at Dillio underscore two. Who's more likely to win a title in 2021? Jay, the producer, Wonderboy, or Jose Aldo? Julio underscore two. Who's more likely to win a title in 2021? Jay, the producer, Wonder Boy, or Jose Aldo? They didn't actually ask about Jay, the producer. I'm just doing it to throw him under the bus. Wonder Boy or Jose?

Jose. Yeah, I would say Jose as well. I mean, I don't think he's like the likeliest guy to beat the very top ones, but I think he gets closer than wrestling heavy at the top of welterweight. I think Covington and, and, and Usman and probably even Gilbert Burns, I'll beat him.

Right. Gilbert Burns is the interesting one. Cause I, you know, here's the thing. Wonder boys got good takedown defense, you know? Yeah.

But I don't know. Usman will get him down, though. Yes. Usman will put him up against the cage and then just pin him until he finds a way to get him to wrestle to his hands, and they just work that process. I don't know if Gilbert's quite there yet. Covington, I think, can do that as well. So, yeah, I like those two guys to beat.

I'm not saying Gilbert can't do it. I want to see how Gilbert looks against Kamaru first, and then I guess we'll make a choice from there. Then again, look, Aldo came up decidedly short against Jan. Do you like Aldo's chances any better? Should Aljo or Sanhagen have the belt? Aljo or Sanhagen? Sanhagen, no.

Aljo, I don't know. Again, Styles McFights, and I know Aljo just ran over Corey Sanhagen, but I still think Sanhagen's ability to adapt on the feet and show all those looks, it's like a really modern game that I think could give Aldo some problems. Aljo can fight long, but I don't think he could retreat to the ground against Aldo. That'd be kind of an issue for him, right? Because Aldo's takedown defense is fucking dynamite, right? So

it'd be on the feet. And Aldo can stick and move, man. He's really good at that, but it would be a little bit closer because of the way the styles work, right? That's the way I would look at it. Real quick to close on that Sergio Pettis conversation, here's his big wins. John Moraga, Brandon Moreno, Joseph Benavidez tyson nam

and then in bellator he beat bandejas and uh some guy you never heard of so um that's pretty fucking good man it's not bad it's not bad maybe it's the pettis brothers i don't know i that's that's a it's a really great question that's a pretty good one that he said there yeah from at from at m porter 440 hey luke is 2021 the start of a new decade? You bitches know that it is because zero is not a year. There is no year zero. But listen, you want to do the Gregorian calendar thing and start your decade at one, or I don't know, at 90, and then go to 99, and then you want to start it at, you know, 2000 to 2009, then 10 to 2019. You bitches can do that if you want, but all of us who know math

The year 2000 was not only not part of the 1990s, it's a whole new frickin' century, bro, okay? So don't give me this BS. Don't give me this, well, William and Mary with our sundials while we played quarters in our frat. No, get out of here. Hey, by the way, I'm going to bury the lead on you. There was no year zero.

So by definition, there would have to be a new decade. But okay. Are you going to bury the lead on your damn tattoo, Luke? Well, hold on. But it's also nominal versus what's the other kind of way? So nominally, what are the two kinds of – hold on. There's two kinds of ways uh ways to measure this there's the nominal way and then there's the i forget in any case no domini yeah hold on now now you know

now i'm doing this nominal hey luke nobody cares can you just show your tattoo already please i mean what is this a math well it's like i can't really do it on camera. I mean, yes, hold on. Let me pull it up here. You can't really see it a little bit. Yes, wait, there. Yes, so there's my tattoo. That's fine artistry. That's fine artistry. You sent me a text of it, and I was impressed, even though you wrote,

don't worry, if it's not for you, it's okay. Well, I didn't even get to shit on it or like it. You're already like, I know you're not going to like it. Well, just because people who don't know anything about tattoos think that they do and then offer opinions that are stupid. But you did not do that, so I appreciate that. I don't know anything about tattoos, Luke. Okay. I say you fall between the scale of the back of Kevin Lee's head and Darren Elkins' danger tat.

Somewhere in the middle there, Luke. Okay. Thank you. By the way, the difference is nominal versus ordinal decade. So it can be both of us being right. But definitely, there is no such thing as the year zero. So all of you idiots who think that there is can suck on these baby please testicles. All right.

And last but not least, we see the question that matters the most. At heavy.falcon, what's the best kind of fry? Waffle? Wedge?, steak, something else? No special situation, occasion, or location. Give me one fry to rule them all. Arby's curly fries are the best fry that ever happened. You fucking ape. Why don't you go finger paint with your kitten, Coco?

Really, Luke? Really? Yes. I mean, they're freaking phenomenal okay who the fuck eats at arby's besides raccoons i mean what are you dude beef and chow beef and cheddar for days bro for come on what's wrong with you uh first of all steak fries suck waffle fries are awful are you out of your mind i'm with you on the steak fries they're fat and stupid fine waffle fries waffle fries are a little tray for dipping they're wonderful i love waffle fries really good

skinny regular fries are obviously awesome if they're perfectly done not over salted perfect uh sweet potato or fans fan friggin tastic there's no i was gonna ask if sweet potato qualified for this conversation because sweet potato qualifies, but you've never had a sweet potato fry that had, like, sturdiness. They're always soggy. You've got to eat them with a fork. Well, that's because I think that a lot of places make them shitty, and you're right. More often than not, they do come that way. But you can make them yourself at home, and they're just fantastic.

At home, I've made them sturdy when they're a little bit thicker. But if you try to make a sweet potato fry like you make normal fries, they are always soggier and flimsier. I think they leave them in too long. I mean, it's a potato. Like, what's the difference? Why is it so hard? First of all, I don't understand how fries are the worst reheated food ever.

Like, basically that and fish, you have to eat it live and hot and ready. But do you count, like, the new evolution the new evolution of disco fries and gravy on it and poutine and all that stuff? No, I think it's just... I think it's more... That's more of a dish. I think we're talking about just the fry itself. I'm going to go waffle fry.

Jay, what is your number one fry? Waffle fries. Is it the fry that has our correct DMs from Donks? Slides? I am with you here. Waffle fries. Although the way that you guys hate on steak fries is inappropriate they are very good steak steak fries are for you know people

who had classes down by the boiler room in high school that's who those are for fries are so lame lame yeah you motherfucker you go to arby's i mean there are three people that go to arby's all right i'm gonna guarantee i'm gonna guarantee right now this is a typical luke overreaction Arby's. I mean, there are three people that go to Arby's. I've never been to Arby's in my life, Luke. I'm going to guarantee right now, this is a typical Luke overreaction. If I ask you the last time you ate Arby's, it'll probably be like 1986, yet you're a freaking expert. I know it. Luke, when was the last time you had Arby's curly fries? 86 might be pushing it. I'm not sure. Now, my brother, like you...

There you go. Thanks for being an expert on something you know. Hold on. My brother, like you, also goes to Arby's like an absolute trash panda, and he likes their curly fries as well. So I have been around them within the last two years. I'm sure they're fine. I'm not telling you that the curly fries are bad, but we're talking about one fry to rule them all, and you have the temerity to overrule Chick-fil-A waffle fries?

Go fuck yourself. Who are you, Osama bin Laden? I've had those a lot? That's an Osama Bin Laden take. Luke, that's like saying vanilla is your favorite ice cream flavor. Get out of here with this, okay, Luke? It is my favorite ice cream flavor. That's actually a true

thing. I love vanilla ice cream. That's so lame. Jay, too. Although, throw some cookie dough in there. It does make it better. Hey, Jay, in addition to cookie dough, can you throw in slides from DMs from donks? No, I don't have any. Oh, interesting. That's fun.

All right, well, BC, it's the shit show, which means we have to get to the official shit show part of the show. Take it away, good sir. Hey, I got a great batch this week of not only curly fries, but these videos. We scour the globe, Luke. You know what I mean? High lows in between good, the bad, and the and the ugly and combat sports have you seen this shit let's start off with uh the zone boxing on saturday luke was there a better entrance in 2020 than canelo coming

into fire and a mariachi band playing the final countdown by europe lu on. Bro, how much COVID was spread in that audience? I mean, that show should have been sponsored by the coronavirus. The coronavirus just had a field day with that audience. That's a big dome, though, Luke. It's a big dome. There's only 15,000 people in there, you know? Oh, yeah? Is that what happened? Yeah.

All right. Well, hey, were you in on Canelo's celebration dance? Look, most things Canelo does is pretty cool. His tattoos are getting a little out of control, but do you like this golf celebration dance? Is it a golf celebration or almost like a baseball bat one, too? Also, who holds a golf club like an oar when you're canoeing? Well, he has boxing gloves on, first of all.

I doubt he plays cricket, Luke, so I think that's golf. That's a hockey slap shot. Oh, that might be the slap shot. Jay, come on. Dude, you can't put your gloves together like this for a golf club? You know what is lame about Canelo? His slogan, no boxing, no life. That's pretty lame, right?

You see that on his sweatshirts and hats all the time? No. If that's a golf swing, this dude's never going to play. Listen, no boxing, no life just has no value. That's not nearly as bad when we had to tolerate RG3 here, when he would have all of his stupid fucking catchphrases. No pressure, no diamonds and shit like that. I'd be like, RG3, listen, you have a robotic leg and you're 23.

Your career is over. Get the fuck out of my face. Wow. So would you say Jason Campbell was a better Redskins quarterback? No. Well, he was better over the long haul, but RG3's 2012 season was, or 2013, whatever it was, was pretty fucking magical. All right, let's go to the Canelo undercard.

Did you see this heavyweight bout? Julian Fernandez called on Frank Sanchez. He's like, here, hit me on the chin. And Sanchez sends this guy to hell via through the ropes, Luke. Did you see how dangerous this was? He falls back on the on the photographer podium look if that thing wasn't there this guy's this guy might die i mean he might be taken back of the skull to the ground you see this you know what if you ask someone to kick your ass can't

be surprised when they succeed can't be mad at him, can you show us the slow-mo replay of this? Look at this replay. Bah. I mean, shout out to Sanchez. He spars with Canelo. He's a good-looking, unbeaten heavyweight. And he sent this guy, Fernandez. Wow. Yeah, those were good bye.

Nobody helping him out. Nobody there to grab onto. Wow. That's me after my fifth dump of the day yeah you've already had four today you're on a good run all right let's go to uh showtime boxing look unfortunately we did not get the full geron boots enix ennis experience in the welterweight co-main event when this headbutt with chris van neerden after ennis was piecing him up a bit brought an end to the fight luke we're going to talk about the scoring in the main event later,

but would you say of the three fights, we had one controversy of a scoring and two cuts ending what looked to be fights that were on their way to be pretty good? That's cursed, brother. I know. And Jerron Ennis is a guy I've got my eye on, too, and I know Showtime does and PBC, obviously. I was so upset about this.

This was the fight, honestly, like even more than the Canelo fight, this was the fight honestly like even more than the canela fight this was the one i was looking forward to the most this weekend and uh what are you gonna do man we had a clash of heads in the ufc as well like uh that's what happened with the main event for wonder boy and jeff neal and i'm sure it affected both of them pretty badly it was a bad gash i guess we don't have a good look at it here but it was a really bad gash on van heerden tell on his head and and also by the way the opener had a really bad cut on paiano's head and they said the doctor said he could see the nerves inside of it luke wow wow all right jesus hey let's hey speaking of showtime i really like that video package they did really celebrating

how hard it is to put on fights whether you're boxing or MMA, in 2020 in the fight sphere, in the Mohegan Dome there. And Brian Custer put out this picture of the team on – Jay, can we go to it, please? There we go. Shout-out to the team, Luke. It hasn't been easy, whether we're talking UFC or anybody, to put on these fights. And me, I've been in a few different bubbles this year. And, you know, you're basically a slave to the hotel room. It's not easy to get this going.

I did want to tip of the cap to our friends there at Showtime who got together for a picture. Hold on, we can shout them out left to right, right? So it's Felix DeJesus, then it's Al Bernstein, Classy Jimmy Lennon Jr., Brian Custer, the guy kneeling, Steven Espinosa. Behind him, that's what, Rafa Marquez, right? Then you have Mauro Ranallo, and then you got Mr. Farhood.

Shout out, great people. Love them, love them. Love the family here. And I really like Chris de Blasio's scarf during that video package as they broke down how hard it is to put on the fights. Thank you, Showtime, for padding my bank account. It's been a great year for you guys, despite everything. And good to see this closing out.

Luke, let's go over to DAZN's Friday night. Sorry, Friday night. Triple G card. Did you see on the undercard this guy Rashad Mati? He fell down on a slip, Luke, and then he does a kip-up. What is this, WWE, Shawn Michaels? Not bad, right? Who does he think he is, Michelle Pereira?

Well, Luke, I don't know if you happened to see his ring entrance, did you? Because this guy Rashad Mati calls himself the albanian batman although it says albanian bear on the uh video screen there luke he not only came out dressed as the albanian batman he came out to the backstreet boys i want it that way your thoughts um at least he's not in the trench coat mafia i don't know i don't know tell me why yeah um well look if you're gonna come out and act like that much of an a-hole you better win the fight let's let's advance the slide here he did get a little bit of a nice stoppage win look at this spaz out to force the the ending here luke switch the stance both sides yeah nice not bad all right

not bad all right hey let's go over to the UFC in Las Vegas deep undercard fight here what were your thoughts on flyweight Jimmy Flick getting the flying triangle buddy you hold on to something in MMA today like any kind of extended limb for any amount of time without doing something with it right away bad shit's gonna happen to you I mean the presence of mind for flick to do this is incredible but we've seen it over and over again guys will catch kicks hold it and then get set on fire afterwards whether it's joaquin buckley spinning you know two touch back kick or uh this one where he just jumps triangle but hell of a triangle hell of a moment don't be holding on to shit folks unless you're

doing something with it you gotta know when to hold them luke so cody durden uh unfortunately tapping out here in first in the first round by the way tyler's brother yeah yeah exactly great name jimmy flick love that all right hey welterweight michelle pareda pareda didn't give us the theatrics during the fight but luke don't check. Check out the weigh-in. What is this, Luke? Bro, he's so athletic, it's absurd. It's absurd. See, do this crap during this. Yes, do that.

Unless you can turn that into a kick, don't do that during a fight, all right? He did that one backwards donkey kick. Did you see that? I did see that, yes, yes. That was the only fun part about that fight. Luke, you would break your back trying this. I would not be able to get anywhere close to that.

Even in my prime, I could have not gotten anywhere close. Do you know how fucking strong you have to be to do that? That is insane. Yeah, yeah, you do. All right. Hey, Luke, we've got a late contender for knockout of the year in 2020, and it comes from this drunken cheerleader. Oh, God.

This is Mike Winklejohn and Holly Hol holm after every win you ever seen that they do this after every win oh look at this innocent bystander caught in the crossfire wow can you please point out that everyone in this video is white thank you yes jay's asking me to note that you'll notice that no one in this video is chinese or african-amerAmerican or wearing a mask for that. Yeah. Wearing a mask. It's, it's my fellow white people who love to hurt each other, drunk or sober.

Well, speaking of drunken jumps, Luke, I got a trio of crowd favorites here on the golf course. Check out this. You know what you watch, you play the Spider-Man game too much times, you know. You start having delusions of grandeur. You end up in hell. Yep, that's how it goes. Luke, let's check out this guy.

I'm so drunk. How about I jump through this glass table for your entertainment? I think we saw this one, right? The Bills Mafia? Have we seen that? I think there's a lot of people that do this. Oh, Jesus. He'll be shitting glass for a year after that, Luke.

Wow. Again, once again, I'm noting at this party, BC, there is a clear absence of African-Americans from it. I wonder if this must be some kind of coincidence. Well, we got one more bad jump for you, and it comes from two white guys, Luke, who've been drinking. Here we go. Who would have guessed?

They're trying to jump onto a moving boat. Oh! They almost touched tips. Dude, they're going to have those scars like the manatees have from getting run over by the fucking blades of the motorboat. They almost touched the tip of that boat just for a second. Luke, that would have been the ending right there. Wow. Well, i mean look i just want to take a moment to look at this shit you had a bunch of white guys god bless them i'm one of them too who are like you know what let's drink core's light and jump off a bridge into a moving boat what could go wrong well they they just barely missed

touching tips but luckily luke luke a lot of people touched tips successfully this week, including a trio of NBA stars. Here's Channing Frye, Richard Jefferson, and Kevin Love posing for a tri-tip photo. You in on this? No. You know I'm not. I don't like it.

Listen, I tolerate it because it's your thing. I don't like the tip-to-tip bit. I think it's weird. Okay, are they touching tips or are they doing like a Illuminati sign? What is that? I'm not entirely certain. Triangle? I don't know.

Maybe that's a Vagin they're making with their hands. Okay, Luke, let's go to this Sky Sports soccer presenter Bella Shaw going tip to tip with a footballer on the screen. Yeah, right? I'm not even sure who that is with the lame-ass jersey.

Someone from Aston Villa and Burnley. Yeah, no wonder. Two shit teams. You know what? Sometimes funny things happen on AirBC. Well, Luke, even Hall of Famers are getting into the tip-on-tip phenomenon. Here's Kazushi Sakuraba going double tip-on-tip phenomenon here's kazushi sakuraba going double tip-on-tip with some young asian man isn't that uh ikuhisa minowa probably

by the way isn't this the same pose that galvan and stylebender did yes it's becoming a thing luke i won't i don't want to say we started this because we didn't but it's becoming a thing all right listen until you shake hands through an open fly you ain't shit to me that is true uh luke let's go to the subway i i'm happy to report there's good covid protocols being done here a lot of masks unfortunately this guy's going to remove it to kiss a a rat dude what in the fuck are we looking at so is it his pet rat or did he find it on the subway that's what i need to know because either way it's creepy as all hell but but there's a there's levels to this luke okay is this guy like the crocodile hunter of you know diseased rodents or something

yes hopefully he gets killed by one of these luke and then i have to say dead no dead wrong he actually got killed by a stingray dude he's dead okay i'm sorry all right i loved him too he's dead okay bindi a little sneaky though luckily we caught up the uh we caught up on that all right luke let's get out of this subway car. Check out this piece of art that the Klitschko brothers have going on at this Kiev Art Museum. Would you put this frame up in your house, Luke? Yeah, that's cool. That's super cool. I love it.

Again, the problem with fight art is that it's always, there's no subtlety to it whatsoever. This is not a very subtle piece, BC. This is a very eye-capturing piece, but I will say it's still pretty cool. This is the kind of piece you need an empty room

with nothing else in it but this, right? Yes, I would agree with that. All right, Vladimir joining Vitaly in the Hall of Fame in the class of 2021. Nothing to see on this next video, Luke, just a airplane landing on a highway in Minnesota and crashing into a car. Yep, that sounds about right.

That's the most interesting thing that has ever happened in the state of Minnesota. Yes, yes, that's a good point. Wow, all right. It's teabag of the week time, Luke. Let's check out this little stunt. Here, I got a motorcycle. Do you have jumping stilts? Yeah, let's check out this little stunt. Here, I got a motorcycle. Do you have jumping stilts? Yeah, let's do it.

For the record, both Caucasian. Okay, moving on, Luke. Dude, it's so off-brand. You would just never expect it from those people. Speaking of Caucasians, I was looking up some research for knockouts of the year and boxing and fights of the year. Came across this October slugfest between Uber drivers. Look, look. Loser has to

report to the night shift at the slaughterhouse, Luke. This is great. These are not Uber drivers. These are DoorDash guys for sure. Love it. Love it. Alright. Couple more for you, Luke. You know the best way to break up a drunken chick fight at the pool? How about some sweet chin music?

Check out Shawna Michaels here. Wow. Yes. Bro, that's how you do a fucking, you know, teep. A little sidekick there. Oh, yeah. And then they go right to the hair. Blah.

Yeah, why do they always have to pull the damn hair? Why can't they fight clean, Luke? I mean, there's a reason why that shit's illegal in mma dude it's a very effective tactic you know yeah yeah what about a twister is that legal in mma um i don't think that skin manipulation is in that way but i could be wrong all right i got one more for you luke you want to see a bad idea how about driving a bicycle off the roof? You ready for that? Is she white? Yes.

Oh, yes. Yes, she is. Look, here we go. I mean, how did she think it was going to end? You're either going to get a hysterectomy accidentally or a lobotomy. Your choice, right? gonna end you're either gonna get a hysterectomy accidentally or a lobotomy your choice right i mean she had five feet of runway and the bike is three feet like yeah look at that dog what i mean just what are the physics there where you think you're gonna launch off this thing like evil kenevil and then stick the landing like there's no uh the instagram there's no other way this could have gone

the instagram account is at why females live longer but not that female look yes yes all right i want to watch this one more time hang on hang on just just just play this through look at this shit the first the tire just goes right over blop and look at her reach a hand out like she got knocked out. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. That's the best shit I got this week. I hope you saw it.

Thank you. Yes. Very good. Very good. All right. Time for odds and ends, BC. What do you have for odds and ends? So you're always against these old white guy boxing judges, Luke.

They screwed up on Saturday night. They did. I rewatched it just to make sure. It was unfortunate that the Showtime Boxing Tripleheader kind of felt cursed. Two fights just as they're getting good ending with cuts that forced no decisions. Well, I guess the first fight, it forced a decision.

But the third fight, the main event, Raymond Gabayo going in there for that interim WBA title against equal late replacement Emmanuel Rodriguez. Luke, I watched this. I thought it was a great performance from Rodriguez. He was efficient. He was a counter puncher. Gabayo is typically aggressive, but Rodriguez was piecing him up so accurately with counter shots

that Gabayo was really setting himself up for one shot at a time. Yes, he was the busier, more active guy, but he landed less punches overall. counter shots that Gabayo was really setting himself up for one shot at a time. Yes, he was the busier, more active guy, but he landed less punches overall. He was only throwing one at a time. Rodriguez was countering cleanly. Our own Raul Marquez on the broadcast had it 12 rounds to zero for Rodriguez. Look, I tried to give Gabayo as many rounds as I possibly could, Luke. Even though some of these rounds were close,

I just felt like the craft of Emmanuel Rodriguez was clear. I gave eight rounds to Rodriguez, and I'm really trying to be generous giving Gabayo four, yet the score is in the end, Luke. 118-110 for Rodriguez, which seemed to make sense. That's 10 rounds to two. And then 116-112, and I believe 115-113 for Gabayo. Wow. We've been here before.

Keep defending those judges. Keep defending them. And unfortunately, they're two guys I really like. Don Trella and John McKay, both really great guys. But I didn't see it. I didn't see it in the end. I tried my best. I didn't see it. They had it 8-4, 7-5 for Gabayo. I thought this was a really nice performance for emmanuel rodriguez coming off of that his only

career loss to niowa a new way everybody gets sent to hell by a new way it seems except for donair and uh both these guys replaced donair in this fight uh nice hair night for manny rodriguez a little weird but i liked it and he took the he took this shaft all right he got the shaft you get the shaft a lot in boxing, Luke. It happens. All right. You certainly do. Did you want to bring up your DAZN thing as well? Oh, yeah.

Look, this kind of went a little under the radar. But any of you may have noticed that if you tried to watch the Canelo fight this weekend, it was available on traditional pay-per-view for the first time for a DAZN fight. And here's the kicker. It was $69.99 and what they were offering in that deal was four months of DAZN on top of that for free or part of the deal which would set you up to where if you wanted to renew you would renew in time for May when Canelo is probably coming back and this is most interesting Luke because the biggest issue it seemed with DAZN

and how they would fit in and potentially play nice in this in this boxing market is that remember they were trying to kill pay-per-view that was the whole hook that was their tagline we are going to kill pay-per-view who wants to pay 80 100 bucks for a fight just pay 8.99 or whatever the original price was per month and you can get canelo and triple g and anthony joshua and all But the problem was, how were they going to do a double network fight with Showtime or Fox or ESPN? It didn't seem possible. Now it looks like it's possible with this new pay-per-view option.

Maybe that's the best scenario, Luke, for their longevity. But it was interesting that they sort of slid it in there under the radar without a major announcement. Maybe this leads Canelo to want to fight with them more. I'm not sure. Do you have any specific take on it? without a major announcement, maybe this leads Canelo to want to fight with them more. I'm not sure. Do you have any specific take on it? You're right.

I remember the commercials with Bruce Buffer and Canelo, and I had Oscar De La Hoya in studio when it first came out, and they were all like, this is the end of pay-per-view, this is the end of pay-per-view, pay-per-view is dying, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and it has been quite resilient. And so now they have to find a way to make peace with it, and the way in which they're doing it, I think, is I don't knowview this is the end of pay-per-view pay-per-view is dying blah blah blah blah blah blah and it has been quite resilient and so now they have to find a way to make peace with it and the way in which they're doing it i think is i don't know if this is the best way but experimenting with it again pre-may for cinco de mayo they had to do it they had to do it they had to find us some kind of hook to get them to go it'll be curious to see what the pay-per-view

numbers look like a for a fight that came together kind of short notice, and also didn't have a huge name in Callum Smith, at least stateside. Obviously, in the UK, I'm sure he's a lot bigger, but stateside, not a very big name. And again, you're splitting the audience, we don't know how much, between DAZN, I mean, I'm already a DAZN subscriber, so I did not pay for the pay-per-view.

So what will the numbers look like, given that some of that is being siphoned off? I don't know. It's some interesting questions questions but i do think the more they do this way where both sides can win it's actually better for boxing because it's not it just removes not for everybody but for the you know the top tier stars where they can move mountains a little bit it gives us a little bit of flexibility to make some things happen so i'm actually all in favor of it provided everyone can still get what they want out of it in the end what i don't know is if you were still able to get the canelo fight simply by signing up for one month of the zone i don't know if that option was removed

to try to force people to buy the pay-per-view luke but either way it's better for boxing in the long run if the zone even though i love the idea of killing pay-per-view right if you're a boxing fan still if you want guys on that side of the line right the matchroom sport guys the golden boy guys to be able to fight the pbc guys the top rank guys in a giant pay-per-view you got to have a way to do it right it can't be well unless you come to my channel we can't fight right we're sick of this we're sick of this crap so if this is the way to do that and you get four months of the channel with it maybe that's the best option i do kind of applaud this if that's the way to do that and you get four months of the channel with it maybe that's the best option i do kind of applaud this if that's the way we're going with this fair enough uh all

right for my odds and ends i have uh some you know not news exactly i think this is kind of known but it's worth reminding everyone it is apparent that anthony pettis has fought out his ufc contract now why might that be interesting well his brother already went to Bellator and has had some good success. Why not necessarily have Anthony Pettis do that? Because you're at the stage in your career where you're probably not going to beat A-list guys in the UFC. You could maybe win a title over there. They might love to have you because he's still a good fighter. But more importantly, Anthony Pettis is kind of a blood and guts fighter.

He's an entertaining one as well a move to Bellator right now while he still has a little bit of life left in him and some ability still that might not be the worst call and maybe UFC keeps him I don't know but let's pay attention to those roster cuts now this would not be a cut exactly where we're just you know releasing you like we did you all Romero when you have three fights left but it would be one where you know do we really want to resign the guy for the next stage of his career that might be one where Bellator could really benefit I actually wouldn't mind the signing depending on you know and how that it all worked out he'd be a good fit for the NBC would you agree he really would I think it'd be better off for his career to go because he said in after the victory which wasn't a great victory

there were good moments there were bad moments uh but he said afterwards look I want to make one last cut to 155 and go for the title. I don't see it. I think that that went over wonder boy in which I know it was at welterweight, but I know that win in which he lost every second of the fight, but yet exploded at the end and won it dramatically. I think that might be the best of what he has left. Luke, look, something happened to him along the way, right? From the, from the Wheaties box to the, you know, in the title to falling downhill and splitting wins and losses for basically the last X amount of years.

I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is, but I think that he'll have a better chance at closing out his career in a great way going to Bellator. And look, if he can go to Bellator and figure out a way to win a championship there, and then it could be a guy who won in WEC, UFC, and Bellator, I mean, that's a nice way to end

out your run. And it might be one of who won in WEC, UFC, and Bellator. I mean, that's a nice way to end out your run. And it might be one of those cuts for UFC where you go, okay, what are we going to get out of him? A couple B-sides? I mean, he was on the preliminary card this time around. It might be time for them to just go, good luck to you, brother. Right. So we'll see what happens. And it's one of those situations where it can work out for everybody.

UFC got the best of him. Bellator can get what's left of him, which is still something usable. And he might be able to get something out of them, which is, you know, ending his career. Dude, you know, getting a WEC and a Bellator and a UFC belt, that is fucking impressive. To date, Eddie Alvarez, you know, with his

Bellator, I think he had a dream title. He had a Bodog UFC. I mean, he's been the belt collector but you gotta you had what if what what he can do that'd be something kind of impressive so we'll see how cyborg is a great belt collector too Chris cyborg she has done that as well I've heard of her I've heard she's good I'm gonna piss my pants so can we get this out of here please please can we yeah BC last thing on this we're not gonna to have a UFC event until January 16th.

How are we going to get through all this? With fun. With breaking news and fun. And maybe some great guests. So here's the deal, Luke. Wednesday is December 23rd. We will have a regular show. I don't know what we're going to talk about.

Dude, the great thing about you and I, Luke, we may not always get along. I might not be always there when you call, right? But I am always on time for this show. We could talk about anything. Okay. Wednesday, we're going to do a show. We're going to pre-record a special bonus Christmas edition of your questions that will air on Friday. And believe me, we have some fun coming with our episode 100 for right after the new year that we're looking to book some big names and get, but yeah, for, for a little bit, Luke, uh, big time fights are going to take a back seat, but let's not forget two things. That we're looking to book some big names and get. But yeah. For a little bit Luke. Big time fights are going to take a back seat.

But let's not forget two things. Conor Dustin is coming. And there's going to be no shortage of crap to talk about. In the next month for that. And also Floyd Jake Paul for better or worse. Is right behind it. So yeah Luke. I mean look we can go back to some homework assignments.

You know I might piss my pants right now, which would be a first on this show. Also, I think Ryan Garcia fights on the 9th, right? January 2nd. I think it's like January 2nd, something like that. Yeah, so there will be some boxing. Good thing we cover boxing on this show, BC. Good thing. Yeah, what do you guys want from us here?

Submission Underground? Hey, isn't Rumble, by the way, fighting Ryan Bader in Submission Underground coming up uh i don't know i don't watch that so i don't know um okay all right uh news and notes here very quickly or just uh if you want to follow us i don't know if they'll have the slide today today's been a great day for production but if you want to see the slides to follow us on social we can put those up you we are on insta we are on twitter and for morning combat everything is consistent with the name everywhere you go. YouTube.com slash Morning Combat. You want to send us an email for Dead Wrong or fan submissions, send

us some Christmas-themed fan submissions. Do that at morningcombat at gmail.com, the official email of the show. If you want to try Showtime, you can get a 30-day free trial. Showtime.com. If you like it, you can keep it. If not, go fuck yourself.

And then last but not least, buy some of that. That escalated quickly. Wow. Bounding sand. Buy some of that merch. You can go to Showtime, excuse me, store.show.com. You can get some of that MK stuff for you and yours, your brethren out there. It'll be a good thing.

All right? All right. BC, anything else before we go? No. Maybe watch that Comedy Store doc series. You love stand-up comedy. Look, it's right up your alley. They got everybody on that show.

It's great. I will watch it. You've been recommending it. I got to do it. I'll put it on the list. All right. For my friend Brian Campbell, who is also from CBS Sports, everyone at Malka, everyone at Showtime, I'm Luke Thomas.

Until next time, may all of your gains be loyal. We'll be right back. We'll see you next time.