MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC Vegas 79 & Bellator 299 Recap | Ferguson-Pimblett | Thompson-Rakhmonov | Morning Kombat Ep 493

Episode Date: September 25, 2023

On Episode 493 of Morning Kombat Brian Campbell and Luke Thomas break down UFC Vegas 79 and Bellator 299. What did we learn from Rafael Fiziev vs. Mateusz Gamrot? Should Bryce Mitchell fight Brian Ortega next? What did Johnny Eblen prove with his win over Fabian Edwards? Next up the guys break down a bunch of fight announcements including Tony Ferguson vs. Paddy Pimblett, Stephen Thompson vs. Shavkat Rakhmonov, Ian Garry-Vicente Luque and much more. As always we close out Monday's with Dm's from Donks and HYSTS. (00:09:15) - Mateusz Gamrot vs. Rafael Fiziev (00:26:10) - Bryce Mitchell vs. Dan Ige (00:43:16) - Bellator 299 recap (01:03:10) - Tony Ferguson vs. Paddy Pimblett (01:14:20) - Fight Announcements (01:32:00) - Israel Adesanya Arrested (01:40:00) - HYSTS Morning Kombat is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and wherever else you listen to podcasts.     For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Well, guess what day it is? Guess what day it is? No, it's not Wednesday. It is Monday, the 25th of September, 2023. And it's many things. In addition to being, let's say, Canelo Charlo Fight Week, it's also your regular Monday morning, morning combat. Hi, everyone.

My name is Luke Thomas. I'm merely one half of your hosting duo. Joined by the primate next to me, although he is barely qualifying for that designation. He is my friend and yours. It's Brian Campbell. Hi, Brian Campbell. How are you?

Luke, I'm actually doing frigging fantastic, and you want to know why? Yes, tell me. Because it's Canelo Charlo Fight Week. And, Luke, this ain't a small one. This is a big one. This is a big-ass one. And when you and me, you and i luke and bc get a chance to be on the front lines this week hosting big events providing the soundtrack to fight week

and injecting ourselves with the same electricity that everybody in vegas will feel come this saturday night showtime pay-per-view it may sound like i'm reading an ad but really i'm reading the thoughts and emotions of my own heart luke i really, I'm reading the thoughts and emotions of my own heart, Luke. I'm fired the hell up. The thoughts and emotions of your heart? Yes. The heart wants what the heart wants, Luke. Okay, all right.

Yeah. But he's right. He's right. So we have a lot to get to today. So, of course, there was a Bellator event over the weekend. There was UFC over the weekend. There were a slew of announcements on Friday after the show. We're going to get to those as well. But also, we are now at the beginning of Canelo Charlo Fight Week.

So let's remind everyone, BC and I will be flying out there tomorrow night. There's like a Wednesday press conference, Friday weigh-in, Saturday we'll be doing the prelims, there's some big names on that. We'll tell you more as the week gets going. But I want to remind everyone right now, youtube.com slash morning morning combat the canelo charlo dissected preview yeah is up and ready for your perusal that went up yesterday you can have a gander at that if you want to kind of set the table bc for what folks might get also for bc why don't you tell them that's what we did on the showtime side why don't you tell them what we have ready for the folks on the CBS side for this week as well? Yeah, this week. Do you know, wait, before I drop that, do you know when it airs, Luke?

Live? I don't actually know when it airs yet, but we can let folks know as it gets closer. It won't be till later in the week. We'll keep you updated, but we will be taking over CBS Sports Network. Thursday, 11 a.m. in the East. Thursday, 11 Eastern, CBS Sports Network. Check your local cable listings. We're back. You may have seen us ahead of that monstrous Spence Crawford date. Now we're back to preview all things Charlo Canelo. Canelo Charlo, man, I think I've messed that up a few times. But, you know, Luke, it's not a mess up when you consider we've got two A-sides here. It's undisputed versus undisputed.

However you want to put the names in order, this is monstrous. I really want the MMA fans to know this. This fight's effing awesome. And I know we can look at the odds, which have Canelo comfortably because of that perceived size gap between them. But this is a real fight. This is a real-ass fight with a lot at stake. I mean, look, can I show you the track marks of injection? I've been watching all access.

I am so fired up right here. Okay, can you see these? Can you see these, Luke? Those are the track marks from the heroin you were doing in the back of the Arby's before the show. Those were whippets, to be fair. But, you know, I don't need that anymore, Luke. You want to know why? You want to know why?

Because of this glass right here. Because of this glass right here, okay? Very good. So, as we said, we'll get everything going throughout the course of the week. Wednesday's show will be from Las Vegas. Friday's show will be from Las Vegas. Tons of good stuff for you guys to get ready. But, of course, we do have to react to some of the weekend's news.

So let's set the table if we can. Of course, I mentioned YouTube.com slash Morning Combat. But beyond that, how about some merch? MorningCombat.store, the Average Joe art stuff. This is what it is. I got the shirt here. It's ready for your enjoyment on the old interwebs.

MorningCombat.store Let's see. Showtime.com 30-day free trial. If you like it, you can keep it. If not, you can bounce. You can do that. Of course, you can also do it with the Paramount Plus bundle. That's available for you as well. MorningCombat.gmail.com to reach the show if you got some bitches, gripes, complaints,

none of which BC and I will read. Yeah, yeah. Say hi to Mikey when you're there. Please, please do that. There you go. I think that's it for us at the beginning of the show, BC. I want to tell you about what's in my glass, Luke. I've been waiting to tell you about this, okay?

Why don't you lead me off while I tell you what's in my glass here in just a moment, please. All right, well, I'll lead you off and let you know, Luke, that our next partner is one that our fans know very well. No, not AG2, although Amanda Guerra was great on the Bellator call over the weekend. I'm talking about AG1, the daily foundational nutrition

supplement that supports whole body health. Luke, I'm talking about Athletic Greens. You are talking about Athletic Greens, and as a consequence, I'm going to add that I also like athletic greens. I drink it. I would say if not every day, just about every day, BC. But when I do drink it in the mornings, I feel unstoppable, my friend, unstoppable. Wow. Wow. Well, I drink it in the morning before working out, Luke. It makes me also feel

unstoppable. Sometimes I put it in my shakes too i mean it's a versatile thing but here's the deal luke i want to give you the real talk i don't always make the best decisions i don't always start my day with something healthy quality strong when i do this when i give my body the nutrition it craves i'm covering all my nutritional bases luke it's like a cheat sheet it's like the cliff notes to a tale of two cities the first city had a black liver the new one pretty healthy pretty healthy look yeah that's definitely not the story of a tale of two cities by the way who wrote a tale of two cities uh probably charles dickens probably yeah pretty good pretty good pretty good all right but anyway he's neither

here nor there we're talking about ag1 and as BC indicated, 75 high quality ingredients that includes all your daily nutrients, both macro and micro for energy, focus, strength and clarity. And BC, it's a micro habit that has macro benefits and anybody can do it. You're right. And all great athletes, Luke, and OnlyFans models have one thing in common. They

take care of their bodies and a huge part of that starts with optimizing the whole body health. And Luke, a lot of these athletes drink AG1 just like I do. I'm down with this. I'm down with this big time. I'm so down with this, in fact, Luke, that I want to help our viewers get something a little bit extra on their first order. Here's the deal. If a comprehensive solution is what you need for your supplement routine, try AG1 today. Get a free one-year supply of vitamin D drops. I put it in my AG1.

How about those five free travel packs we talk about? Five nights, I'll be in Vegas this week, right? I'm going to need all five of them, Luke. With your first purchase, you can get that as well. Get it. There you go. Go to drinkag1.com. That's the letter A, the letter G, the number one.

Drinkag1.com slash morningcombat. number one drink ag1.com slash morning combat that's drink ag1.com slash morning combat check it out there we go let's cut it out but just the same you can do that all right thank you uncle joey and i'm very happy that she was willing to go down in the theater look you know i mean it made it made for great 90s alternative rockets you know what i'm saying jagged Little Pill was a big hit. It was a big hit. People don't even know. Do you think the little pill in question, you know what I'm saying?

I mean, what does that title mean, Luke? You know what I'm saying? Only she would know about Uncle Joey. Already we have to play the horny alarm for you. Already. And it's only 11 minutes into the show. All right. Let's get to the news over the weekend from the fights themselves

and then some of the bigger announcements. But let's start with the UFC as we customarily do here. Topic number one. So, Rafael Fazeev loses his main event, his UFC Vegas 79 main event, after suffering what we believe to be a knee ligament injury BC the question that I have for you is you know the bout he had with Gamrot was close up to that point and it ended early into the second round after a very close and competitive first round did we learn anything from this bout at all a little bit here's what we learned okay one that

it was on pace to be a pretty damn good chess match of back and forth adjustments from both of them tentative and technical of course but you had to believe over five rounds this thing was going to eventually open up but what i do think we learned is part of the reason for okay bet while i picked why why i picked gamrot in a very slight upset considering how close these odds were and that's with luke can you correct me on how to say this man's name? I always say Mateusz. They're like Matusz.

I mean, what are we doing here? So I've seen them kind of say the S and the Z like it's an H. Again, I'm not Polish, so they're saying Mateusz. Okay, here's the deal about Mateusz. He needed to round out his game. He needed to elevate. He needed to step up to the next level. He had a couple moments, Luke,

when we're talking about the big loss in this current run, which has been impressive, and the two close wins, right? You're thinking about the Tarantula. You're thinking about Sarukian. He can do a lot with control. He's very technical. He's got skills.

But he had to learn the lessons from those really close fights that you're going to need more. While this was, throughout one round, a very close fight, and a round I think that you could have scored either way, I did like the offensive urgency of Gamrot to realize that he really needs to establish the overhand right. He was working his jab a lot, that it can't just be all in service of setting up a takedown

and leading to control time, in which maybe he didn't do enough in top position. I saw Gamrot, who at least had responded well to some of the closer fights in his recent run. No, we didn't truly learn who's better between the two. But did you catch that, Luke, over six or seven minutes that we did see? I saw Gamrod leveling up, realizing how close he is to true title contention and that sometimes it just means being a little bit more busy, urgent, intentional with his offense. I kind of liked what I saw early on.

It at the very least prevented Fazeev from having any kind of big moments. I don't know. I didn't quite see it that way. I found the scoring for Gamrot in the first round baffling. I don't really think there's a very strong case for him. I mean, I don't think... Don't get me wrong. What are you missing?

Did you not see the clean strikes that he countered countered with the big strap i thought he landed the biggest shots of the first round gamrot yeah yeah so you don't recall him getting battered in that one combination that fazeev threw that backed him up and landed like four punches of course i do which is why i believe this fight could this round could have gone 10-9 either way but i think the combination of the wrestling attack and the stiff punching from Gamera. What did he do with the wrestling attack? He got no takedowns at all.

Right. Well, no, toward the end, he came very close. I mean, look, I get that there's a technical definition. He didn't do anything. That's what you're asking. You're looking for evidence that he leveled up, and I'm saying, where? Show me where.

What part of each round do you see that there was like, he's already very good. Well, there's only one round, to be fair. And I saw him, Luke, what he talked about in the post-fight interview as well, that he knew he needed to make that right hand a part of his offense. He knew that he needed to bring more power into it. And, Luke, I think maybe you're 48 more times away from seeing if you re-watch it what i saw yes i know i mean you can deal with the facts or you can make jokes you always like

to go with the latter one that's okay no no i missed i i merged both together luke because this is an entertainment program but i did watch the fight i did pick gamera i actually was impressed by what he was doing doesn't tell you he was going to win the fight that's yeah there's no there's no way to know if it had gone the distance. It's impossible to say. And I think anyone who could tell you, oh, I knew this guy was going to win based on what we had seen in, again, a competitive first round

and then whatever you want to call the second. I mean, look, if you think I'm a bad actor, just say it. Just tell the people. No, I don't. I saw that there were scores for the first round all over the place before I had seen the fight. So I'm like, and it makes sense that you would, if you hadn't seen the fight and people like all the scorings every which way you're like oh that makes sense right this fight's very very close and then I

watched the first round and I'm like Gamrot definitely was busy trying to do stuff that's true and he I think some of his um his in his targeted strikes to the head were pretty good. But I don't think it's all that hard to score. I thought Fazeev did the much heavier damage, the much heavier blows. In fact, taking Gamrot off of his feet with a crushing leg kick that spun him around and took him, again, standing to the ground. I mean, he was punishing him way harder. So I'm just, like, the case for Gamron,

I can't say that there isn't one at all. I just don't think it's nearly as strong as the one for Fazeev. To your point, all three judges officially gave the first round to Fazeev. I did believe, watching it, that it was fairly close. I get what you're saying about the impact that Fazeev had in those moments, but it was a rather technical sort of feeling out round in a lot of ways. But look, did I see something? Yeah, I saw enough in Garmot to lead me to believe that he's realizing

how to put his best foot forward. He knows what he has to do moving forward. For Fazeev, he was kind of reading it. I'm sure he was going to break out much more if that injury didn't happen and be more offensive and be busier. But the media scores were kind of split after that first round. I did like what I saw there. But it's tough, Luke, very tough.

I don't know how long this is going to sit Fazeev down, but this is certainly a detour on any type of momentum he was looking to build after the close loss to Gaethje. But what do you feel about, I mean, I guess if Gamrot didn't really wow you over six or seven minutes, you won't feel much. But does this guy have what it takes to get to the title level? Are you confident in that area? I mean, see, this is the thing, right?

So, like, where has he fallen short? He fell short against Benil Darius, right? That's where he ultimately couldn't get the job done. And that was a tough fight, but Benil was simply better. So I was looking to see something in this fight where could I, you know, this is not Benil Darius 2.0, that's not what my point is, but rather did I see, I was hoping to see something in this opportunity that would give me some kind of clarity about his growth since that fight. In fairness to both guys, I just feel like it ended before we could ever really make much of this at all.

In fact, I do feel bad, not just for Fazeev and his injury, because we don't know how long he's out or how bad it was. And it's unfortunate when any fight gets kind of ended with some kind of, I don't know, bizarre or just unlikely event like that. But it also sucks for Gamrot. Because Gamrot, after this fight, was saying to the media he wants to fight Charles Oliveira. And what I feel bad for him is, like, I'm not saying he won't get it or whatever. He might not even do really well. There's a lot of ways this could play out, BC. But I guess the thing that I felt when this was over was, you know, when someone wins a political election and they win by a giant margin, they have what's called a political mandate.

Like, the voters put that person in, whether it's the mayor or the senator, the governor, whoever, to do stuff. Like, you now have a great amount of capital, so to speak, that you can spend to get stuff done. And when you have a resounding victory, you have a similar kind of fight capital, so to speak. There's just no capital to be gained from this win. He doesn't have any ability, from what I can tell, to be like, this should be next. I'm the most deserving guy blah blah blah even though BC I do grant if that fight had gone on and he really wore Fazeev down he would be in that spot it's just we got we got the fight taken from us before any guy had a chance to really put their stamp on it and then demand that capital to move forward uh largely fair with

what you're saying Luke I maybe i have different eyes i was able to fine-tooth comb a couple developments within there but largely unfinished business and a big disappointment for a fight that at least through six or seven minutes did look like it was going to be going to be going to be fun over 25 minutes and we were going to learn a lot on who's advancing and who has grown but you know them are the breaks luke what what do you feel about people that say and i saw a lot of this reaction, and to be fair, I had the same reaction after Michael Chandler Brent Primus won at Bellator MSG. Do you think it should be a TKO?

I get that it would. Like, I mean, is there any gray area in this debate in your eyes? Like, if it happens in the first round where it's an obvious injury not caused by a strike, but in this case by defense, right? Fazeev kicked what, the elbow of Gamron? Is that what we're led to believe here? But it was his posting leg, I thought. I thought it was the leg he was posted on that actually tore when he kicked. So you're saying, yeah. So my whole point is, Luke, if unless when someone strikes you, if I calf kick you and your leg gets injured, you can't continue. I'm fine with that as a TKO. Do you believe there should be any sort of deeper look into this?

Because this will go down as a knockout loss for Fazeev in a fight that all three judges gave him the first, despite my eyes and in a fight that we had no idea where this is going. I get that this, this didn't happen around one. It happened early around two, but I almost feel like in, you know, in boxing, Luke, we have that, uh, if, if you're doing a 10 or 12 round fight, there's a fourth round cutoff for an accidental fall, right? Where, you know, headbutts, anything like that that causes a cut. If it happens before the fourth round, we just call it a no contest and we move on. If it happens after, well, hey, we go to the scorecards and see who was winning. This is just such an unsatisfying win. And obviously that Chandler premise one is a good reference

because that was for a title. But I just hate to see it like this, go down like that, especially early in a fight. If this happened in the middle of the fourth round, I go, okay, that's fine, but let's go to the scorecards. What's your defense on that? It wasn't like it was a strike caused that. It was more of like he was going for a strike, right?

Yeah, kind of. See, that's why I think the Primus and Chandler one's a little bit different because Primus kicked Chandler and then dead in the leg, and then he couldn't use it. And so after that, it happened in other fights. We saw them. It happened to Henry Cejudo for, I think, in the, which fight was that? The second Demetrius Johnson fight, something like that,

where he got hit with something like that as well. So that would still be a little bit different because that was forceful and on purpose rather than this one just being kind of accidental. I mean, here's the thing. It's like if you get injured in the middle of a fight because someone struck you, that's one, people want to say that's one thing.

If you get injured in the middle of a fight for something that someone didn't necessarily intentionally cause, that should be different. But I don't know how you i mean that's that seems like a really difficult thing to parse there will be certain occasions where you can tell like if someone does a jds and they throw a punch and it misses and then the arm comes out of the socket it's like how much did the guy dodging the punch really have to do with that yeah but at the same time none of us are really medical professionals. Actually, when you're assigning blame about what caused an injury,

I am agreeing that there will be clear-cut cases where the other opponent had virtually nothing to do with it. But I think my point is that there's going to be a wide range of cases where it's going to be hard to kind of exactly pinpoint medically exactly. I mean, who knows how much that takedown defense

he was doing earlier, who knows what much that takedown defense he was doing earlier who knows what kind of tweaking he might have done to his knee or ankle or any kind of hip right and trying to like stop those treetop takedowns that gamrot was going for i don't think they're medically related but this is my point you end up having to be like a coroner when it's all over being like oh i could look through all of these and now i can assign blame it's hard to do for medical injuries in the middle of a fight I think the rules are trying to make account for that reality rather than just being the cleanest you know and we can't we can't account for what leads up to that injury did certain strikes set that up right let's say you you got kicked in the calf four times really hard

and then you went for your own kick and the injury happened I get what you're saying I get that this isn't even a foul or an accidental foul, but I was using that boxing reference to just basically say when shit happens early, should the fight go on? I think it's a debate. Luke, the other thing I wanted you to clear up for my white belt eyes was the debate Cruz and Bisping had where it did look like Gamrot secured his only takedown in the closing seconds of round one, but as Dom Cruz said when they came back from commercial, no, that's not technically a takedown. Luke, why would it not be a takedown when you shoot, get somebody to their ass or back, and then are in a top position?

What is the difference there on how you define that? This was the one where they spun around at the very end. He got him to a seated position before the horn he did yes he did he got into and i think he wrapped the far side hip which in if you once you wrap the far side hip in collegiate wrestling that would be too but in mma fight metric doesn't score the takedown unless you're able to secure it and hold it i think for some amount of time or reasonably do anything with it. If you just seat the rear end to the mat and then they stand, I don't think they count

that. I think you have to control it and then begin to manipulate from there. And there wasn't enough time for that to be established. I don't mean to be an idiot, Luke, but if my goal is to take you off your feet and I sat you down and I'm on top of you, and in this case he didn't get up, right, because the buzzer hit, the horn hit, that feels like a takedown to me. That's all I was trying to understand.

I mean, I think what you're saying is I took him from feet to ground. And I think what Fightmetric is saying is let's put this word takedown as something separate. And so folks are saying, well, this is kind of close to that, which it is, but not quite the same thing. And the reason why MMA has this is kind of close to that which it is but not quite the same thing and the reason why mma has this definition where you have to establish or i should say fight metric rather because the commissions don't use it but the one the reason why fight metric has it is because they are trying to find a way to differentiate it from collegiate wrestling

from those other areas where it is just about you know can you get this the seated two basically all right well maybe we'll bring on richard man and ask him you know how offended he is at my dick boy nickname and then further you know we'll talk about i'm sure alienation yeah i'm sure he loves it i got a cough today jesus all right with that in mind wait luke is sick i've never heard of such an occurrence look you should take ag1 i mean i, I'm never sick. You notice that? Never. I'm not sick. I'm not sick. I don't think I'm coughing because I'm sick. I feel fine.

But for some reason, I got a bit of a cough. You're not crazy, Luke. You're just a little over. My daughter, I took her to a play date yesterday, and she coughed, and she had so much phlegm in her lungs, it sounded like a thunderclap had hit. And everyone was like, yeah, thanks for bringing her. And I was like, welcome to my world. If people at that

party nicknamed her Newark Penn Station, would you have been offended? No. That would have been extremely apt. Although she wasn't also begging for money. She wouldn't quite fulfill the needs there. And as I mentioned, BC, there's really no implications for the division

in the sense of having a mandate. But I guess we'll see. This could have been a number one-ish contenders fight. The last thing I'll say on this before we move to point number two is, BC, I'm still waiting for this turnover to force some of these older names out. And they have been reluctant to move along to their credit. Again, we had kind of seen this like, oh, have been reluctant to move along to their credit. Again, we had kind of seen this like,

Oh, there's going to be this turnover happening. I thought this was going to be a little bit more closer to that. And it really wasn't, we didn't move the chains on any of this turnover at one 55. I think we've been long expecting these old dudes. They have been very resilient and how long they have stayed at the top. It's pretty amazing.

These old dudes are names so they can main event or headline a pay-per-view. They're badasses and they make incredible action fights. And they've largely been fighting each other of late, Luke, which is matchmaking I'm not against, by the way, right? Like the BMF, Poirier, Gaethje, too. I felt it was entertaining, necessary fun. But I hear your point. I do want to see which part of this larger young guard of people

that are in the back part of the top 10 and the top 15 that are going to start making their move. I want to see who's coming out of there, Luke. Who is going to be future challengers to the crown? And also, you know, I mean, look, this division was once the greatest division of all time. I mean, it's no worse than what, second or third, in terms of entertainment and excitement and names right now.

I don't know who's going to hold on to the belt for the future. I mean, I'm starting to get really excited for this Mahachev-Charles rematch in Abu Dhabi coming up next month, Luke. I don't know about you on that. I am super pumped for that. I cannot wait for that one. That's the one I've got circled on my calendar. I cannot wait for that one.

Of all the MMA events to be excited for, my excitement for 294 is like 295 296 combined it's way higher yeah all right uh BC let's go to point number two here let's talk about the co-main event from Saturday Bryce Mitchell scores a very very hard-fought decision win over Dan Ige so first give me your assessment of Bryce Mitchell how not just how did he look, but has he looked to you like he is making the requisite improvements as he goes through the contendership queue, up and down, right? Because he lost to Teporea, but he got a nice win here. And then I want to talk about next steps, but just give me an assessment.

Grade Bryce Mitchell's performance against Dan Ige. Which fight are you talking about? The fight against Ige or the fight against Satan? I don't know what to say about the one against Satan as I'm not one who believes in such a creature. Oh, he's real, Luke. I've danced and fought and came out, luckily, on the other side.

Separate from that, we can hit some of those high theatrics and have you seen this shit, but look, let's get serious. You're right. This is a nice bounce back win for Bryce Mitchell. I really thought it was. And you consider that he had, you know, like a legitimate eye injury that he fought through and it didn't hold him back. He had legitimate questions to answer from the devastating nature of the Teporia loss. But I think some of that was offset by the reveal of how ill he was and how that was a poor decision in hindsight to take a fight that dangerous when you're not 100%.

So what did we see here? We saw a guy that's certainly still leaning on his strength, which is his grappling ability. But look, how great is his grappling ability, especially in this fight, in this matchup? I mean, did you see? Luke, you know I don't speak this, right? Although I have a fantastic interview with grappler Danielle Kelly that you can watch right now on Morning Combat YouTube channel. Luke, when he took his back in round three and was able to make that adjustment on the ground, that was grappling wizardry, according to the Internet. I mean, this guy leaned on his strengths, did enough, got the win that I thought he deserved, and looks to be back on the road to possible title contention,

and he did it against a guy who was red hot here coming off of two much-needed bounce-back wins. You know, he passed the test in my eyes. Yeah, I have... His back take in the third round against Ige was exceptionally good. Like, a very, very, very tough to do. Not many guys would have been able to do it. Can you tell us what did he do?

This is like class for me, Luke. Teach me. I have to go back and look at it exactly, so I'm going off what I see in my head. This is the one where Ige was grabbing. They were already on the ground, and it looked like Bryce was completely underneath him. But what ended up happening was Ige had his outside leg and was pulling it up if you go and recall and um the actual inside leg that Bryce had the left instep was preventing Ige from ever building a base and then he used that to never let the shoulder get past his chest. And then he had this unbelievable flexibility and strength to throw the one hook over the top and then just right come around the corner.

It sounds like a very basic thing, but we're talking about a level of not just detail, but about body control and strength in these very precarious positions where if your weight and control and your in your squeeze is not in excuse me in all the right places at just the right time you will lose it because remember Ige is pulling up on this and all he has to do is get this elbow past or the shoulder past and it's over for him and instead because Bryce was not letting him use the instep to create a base to build up a structure, he couldn't do it. In fact, you'll notice that Ige doesn't get to his base until Bryce comes around the corner, and then he's able to begin to build a little bit.

It didn't do him any good. But the point I'm trying to make is he had stopped that before it ever got started. So we're talking about a guy who's basically, not fully, hanging upside down and managed to retain the back in the process against a very good jujitsu black belt dude that is damn very hard to do it look very hard at least two times it very quickly and impressively too i mean obviously the guy's brilliant on the ground did you see anything you didn't like in this performance well here's the thing it's a great performance it's a great performance and i think the value in this performance for me is what was he going to look like after what

happened to him with teporia because i don't know about his home life but it appears that you know something was going on with one of his exes or whatever was going on with the trees being poisoned or something. So there's that. And then he took that fight against Teporio, and he probably should not have, which you had alluded to with the illness, which I did not think was a bad admission. I thought it was actually a good admission.

And so he needed to kind of get right and show some ability. On that score, I thought he did extremely well. On that score, I thought he did really, really, really, really well against a very tough opponent. For folks who may not know, he attempted 15 takedowns in this fight. That's the most he's ever attempted in any UFC fight ever. He's never tried this much. And that is a testament

to who Dan Ige is as a very, very capable challenger. And by the way, I thought 30-27 was unfair to Dan Ige. I thought Dan Ige won the second. First was kind of close, but I could see why you give it to Bryson. The third I thought he took as well. But, you know, 29-28 seemed like a little bit more of a reflective effort there.

Here's where I come up a little bit short. And again, I want to be clear. I'm judging this performance, BC, based off of getting right past Topuria. My only hesitation here was, again, if you're evaluating this as getting back on the W track after a pretty bad setback, mission accomplished times a thousand. If I was looking for something that told me he could then move into a place where he could readily challenge for a title or really beat the top two, three, four contenders, and again, that's a huge ask, I recognize. I didn't see anything there.

I did not see necessarily a huge threat there. But maybe that wasn't what he was trying to do. Maybe that wasn't the goal. Maybe if he had a different fight with different motivations, you'd get some different responses from him. So again, going back to just like he was coming off of a real bad setback, this was the get right performance and get right was was in full effect on saturday night that much i know well i guess the the the loaded

nature of my early question regarding his potential future and of title contention is can he get there with the current status of his striking which is certainly not you know know, he's not awful, but does he use his striking to do more than set up his takedowns? Not really. Might be no. It might be no there, Luke. Not really. You know, I mean, I see the way he trains. I see that trailer in the middle of the farm, and he drinks the raw,

he chews on the raw coffee grinds. I mean, this guy's gnarly, Luke. He puts in the work. He's a world-class grappler. I'd like to see that evolution on the striking side as well for his own good, Luke. Yeah, that part I think is missing. I didn't see much of that. And again, I think if you're trying to beat a very tough Dan Ige,

standing with him would be not a great idea, right? It just wouldn't be. But that's sort of the point. It's like, when will that be an option for him? When will his striking be in such a place where standing with Dan Ige versus having to go to the ground? I mean, this is the thing about it too, right? Like his grappling is overwhelming,

but I'm beginning to notice guys are a little bit better, not Edson Barboza, however long ago that was, but in 2022, 2021, whatever it was, not, he still has to win with positional control. He doesn't do a ton of damage with the ground and pound against guys who can resist at the level of Dan Ige. So this is my point. It's like he's got a great skill set.

He had a mission. I think he accomplished it. But we should be very careful about trying to say where does this go because as good as what he's got is i don't know if it's ready for that one which leads me to my question bc which is is the next logical fight for him because danie gay is a quality win that's a quality opponent what about a returning brian ortega is should that be next i mean i'd love that i mean look i don't know if the ufc rankings are updated at the moment they have ortega. Should that be next? I mean, I'd love that. I mean, Luke, I don't know if the UFC rankings are updated at the moment. They have Ortega at three, and they have Mitchell at ten. So it'd be a little bit of a leap, but Ortega's got to come back soon,

and he tends to only fight huge names and take big risks. I would think, Luke, maybe they'd go in a different direction here, but I'd love to see these two match their ground skills and see what it looked like on the feet, knowing how often Ortega likes to just walk into oncoming traffic and make it a real fight, a real brawl. But yeah, that would be the type of leveling up opportunity for Bryce Mitchell to show us exactly what his true upper bound limits are in this division. I don't hate that. But then again, Luke, you know my Ortega fandom. I'd love to see him against anybody. I really would. Yeah, it's hard to put Ortega in a bad fight.

I'm just trying to think of the next logical step. I guess you could do the winner, not if Barboza wins, but I guess if Sadiq Youssef wins against Barboza, you could do something like that, where, again, it's kind of striker versus grappler, and both guys would have a big test to answer in that way. That's something fun you could do as well. But, like, I do think that the max

holloways or the potentially even the ayer rodriguez is all that that would be a fun fight too bryce mitchell versus yair i mean i guess yair might stuff the takedowns and turn that into a brutal one but against obviously ilia we already saw i still feel like there's a bit of a gap between like the grappling of bryce is good enough to be there but the rest of the game i'm not sure is that's my only issue do you think he has the stamina to wrestle like that for five rounds on the title level nobody does no nobody does if he can get if he can get control positions and hold them for long enough yes i do think he can but if he's struggling to keep someone down let's say man i don't know who can

do that for 15 to 25 minutes it's very very difficult not habib against ally acquinto luke nope exactly dude even that's what i mean even the great habib never gonna made all that like kind of had to let off his foot off the gas a little bit on that shit like people forget look i picked connor to knock out habib and obviously in hindsight it could be kind of laughable but let's remember who connor was and i know he'd been off for two years from mma but let's remember who he was against Eddie. And I was believing too much into the magic, but I have to, in hindsight, say the big reason was Habib Laquiman in the championship rounds against Iaquinta. And I get that that fight was so weird. That was like the fourth or fifth opponent

Habib had entertained fighting that week. And you had the dolly incident and the craziness and all that and suddenly it's like no you're fighting this guy on one hour notice good luck to you but that did show me that oh this guy's human turns out Luke he's actually not turns out he's actually a machine and he walked away undefeated and you know it's incredible it's incredible yeah it is incredible all right BC before we turn our attention to Bellator 299, tell me somebody else from this card who stood out to you, perhaps for reasons good or bad. Yeah, I got to like Charles Jourdan, Air Jourdans. The speed and efficiency at which he took Ricardo Ramos,

actually he got taken down, but he put on that guillotine, stuck with it, and then three minutes into that round, he suddenly turned out the tap, Luke. Air Jourdan is always fun to watch. He's still only 27 years old. He'd shaken off losses in the past. Dude, this was like damn right, hello. Big victory to tell us which direction he's going in.

Fair enough. I'm going to pick, and I think we'll have footage or whatever of this later, but Marina Rodriguez beating the fucking breaks off michelle watterson gomez bc let me ask a question i mean i'm being dead serious about this why was there a second round in this fight i mean i was watching that for the first time this morning i texted you i was like damn watterson gomez is looking like pene in the joanna title fight and then you're like oh i can't believe they went to round two. I'm like, they went to round two?

What? This is like an absolute, yeah. I mean, I don't know, reputation, name, maybe. But, dude, that was brutal. You hear a lot of people, Luke, on the internets now saying, what's Karate Hottie hanging on for at this point? You also heard a lot of people saying something we sniffed at last week. Why the hell was this fight made after we just saw it a couple years back and Marina had,

you know, cleanly and clearly won it. It's not as if Watterson Gomez was on a big win streak, although as I pointed out, she's competitive in many of her losses. But yeah, Luke, this, this, yeah, that was, dude, that was an ass kicking. I mean, it's not quite Silva versus Franklin one and two, but it, it, it, it certainly was just violent shit. Just straight up. You know what I'm saying? I mean, that's a tough woman on the other side. You see her in the hospital with when they, when they went in and it was like murderer's

row in the hospital with all these UFC fighters, one after another on the gurneys, you know? Yeah. Did you see, did you see her embrace, her embrace our colleague Rashad Evans cage side? No, I didn't. No, so she gets out of the cage, and I'm not sure who shot it, but she came over to Rashad basically just bawling, bawling right in front of him. And he embraced her,

and it looked like he was trying to tell her words of encouragement. I don't know exactly what was said, obviously. you know you feel bad for her i mean listen here's the thing she has always kind of i would not always but she has more recently ish and we look at the full expanse of her career maintained that you know she can fight at 115 and it's kind of like you know she's capable here. And I just think you look at a fight like that, and I want to be clear, like, part of the reason why Rodriguez was so dominant in the clinch is because she is technically sound in that position as well.

It's not just a strength thing. But also, in addition to her technical soundness, she was stronger than Michelle Waterson Gomez. She was clearly muscling her around with both technique and relatively speaking brawn and it's been a big issue for her bc she hasn't put watterson gomez she hasn't put back-to-back wins together since beating felice herrick and carolina kovalkevich back in 2018 and 2019 she's had one win since then a win over angela hill a split decision in 2020 that's now four

losses in a row although two of those come to uh marina rodriguez but two before that one to juana and jay chick i went to carla esparza listen man far be it for me to tell anyone how to live their life but i you know if you're losing that's one thing if you're losing and starting to get maimed that's when you need to start asking the very serious questions about whether or not this is a good idea to keep doing. Well, Luke, I think, you know, I'm speculating here, but if I had to guess the fuel of her tears beyond just

the defeat and the damage she took is they did talk about on the broadcast her reaching out to MMA officials, some judges, and basically being like, why am I losing these split decision fights? What do I need to do to win you guys over? official some judges and basically being like why am i losing these split decision fights what do i need to do to to win you guys over and if you saw how quickly she shot for a takedown and was successful early it appeared that was the direction she wanted to go control time wrestling try to work

ground and pound all of that so i think anytime luke somebody gets to the point where they know they're in the the latter of their career, they're mounting losses and they're mounting enough consecutive losses that, you know, the whispers of the job future is in question. And then you ascend, but at the same time, you know, you still have something left in the tank and look, she still has something left in the tank. I can't even imagine that frustration when, when you like either get in the best shape of your life or completely try to reinvent yourself with a new team and style, or in this case, literally going to the judges and being like,

how do I get over the top? How do I do this? What am I not doing? And then you have this devastating of a defeat. It's soul-crushing, Luke. It is. But I think we're learning now is, unless she wants to be extreme name gatekeeper, this isn't the level she's at anymore. And it doesn't mean she can't still fight somewhere. It doesn't mean she still can't be a name.

She's a heck of a personality, Luke. I've loved when she's, you know, moonlighted into some broadcasting work, too. But that's got to be the toughest thing. And Rashad, unfortunately, our colleague who we love, he went through a similar thing when he tried to reinvent himself at middleweight and is fighting much lesser competition. And just he couldn't figure out, why am I losing?

Why can't I do it? That's a tough spot to be in. But that's also a huge red flag and warning sign that the days are numbered. It might be time to do it, to hang it up, to go, especially after that devastation. I mean, that was... I mean, you don't see that too often, Luke, that type of just brazen ass-kicking at this level. Yeah, well, also, Kerry Hatley just let it rock

for a little while. Oh, he wanted blood. He wanted, like that, who was the ref that time that Les Shevchenko sent Priscilla Kachuei out to, like... Yeah, he was like, I don't just want you to find out where the basement is in hell, I want you to keep digging to see if we can go lower, yeah

that was great Alright, with that in mind, let's turn our attention now to Bellator 299 300 is upon us, BC Let's start with the main event if we can Johnny Ablin finishes Fabian Edwards inside the third round.

Struggled a little bit with his wrestling. Couldn't really get it going. So tell me in your mind what he proved with this victory. I mean, this is the type of win that champions do. Like you said, his A game is his wrestling. And Luke, to be fair, did he struggle or did he just not attempt to utilize it? I didn't see a lot of shooting from him. So he shot a few times. There was only like one or two times where he really went after it.

So when I say struggle, I'm using it somewhat lightly, but he definitely did not use much wrestling, actual wrestling to win this contest. Well, I think he showed you that he's rounding out his game because look at what he did with his striking look at the point that he finished this fight it happened so fast that i was just like damn like how did that happen then you watch the replays you actually see fabian edwards kind of potentially go out as those big strikes are landing but it went from competitive fight to over like that and look that's what champions do. So this is continuing this larger coming out party for Eblen, not just having already beaten big names, you know, Musashi winning the title and

establishing himself, but now defending it in tough matchups on the road in Europe. I know this wasn't Fabian Edwards' backyard, but this is what champions do. And the closer that we get to Eblen to figure out what he's made of, how he's wired, who he is, I'm starting to really love this guy, Luke. I don't know if you saw that extended sit-down that ran on the Bellator broadcast before the main event, but it was AG2 Amanda Guerra sitting down in ATT with Eblen. And he's really trying to establish that, you know, I'm a gunslinging MF-er who just doesn't care. I don't care about you.

There was a lot of trash talk that I kind of enjoyed in the build-up to this. And to see the champion Eblen overcome and when i say overcome look we're gonna see this and have you seen this shit i don't know if we have access to it now that cut was disgusting that he suffered you could put your fist in that cut right between his eyes right there so to overcome that and to feel the legitimate urgency of oh crap i've I've been busted open, the kind that can become dangerous, the kind that referees and doctors are quick to call off, and he produced a finish like that, it wasn't quite Habib going from one more leg kick of peril against Gaethje to submit him in about two and a half seconds. But Luke, I think you would agree, there suddenly became this urgency that I got to get the fight finished, and that's exactly what he did in round three.

Dude, okay, is Fabian Edwards the same level as Adesanya and Strickland? I don't know. Probably not. But this is a good-ass win for a guy that you teased earlier last week is in contention for best middleweight in the world. I don't see how you could watch this and not think that that's still true. Right. I mean, the argument for Johnny Eblen as best middleweight is not that it's definitive.

It's not definitive. But you cannot have a conversation about who is the best middleweight in the world if he's being excluded. Like, you just cannot do that. BC, I'll tell you what. I actually love this fight for Johnny Ebelin. To your point, made a couple mistakes, and the big one was sort of just standing and trading in front of Fabian Edwards. He got hit with that. Dude, it looked like he got hit by an axe.

I mean, he got hit by some kind of, you know, logging equipment or something. I mean, it was just like a bear attack or something. He got, I mean, viciously, awfully cut. I was shocked that the fight continued, to be perfectly honest with you, although his cut man did a real good job of stopping the bleeding. But okay, here's what I loved about it. He couldn't really win the way he wanted to, which was striking a little bit, moving on the outside,

and then shooting for a takedown and getting it. That didn't really work. And again, to your point, he wasn't spamming takedowns, but to the extent he used any wrestling and chased one down, I think at the end of the second, it didn't go anywhere. Didn't matter. The way in which he got the right hand was he looked low and faked like he was going to go for the shot. Threw the right hook.

Edwards kind of got out of the way and moved back. But by that point, you had Eblen who had captured the far leg. So he throws another one over the top and it lands perfectly. Right? So in other words, he didn't beat him with wrestling. He didn't beat him with striking, but he beat him with MMA striking. He beat him by incorporating all the different elements, sitting this guy down as a consequence, and then polishing him off on the ground. That is very difficult to do. And I agree. I think Fabian Edwards is very talented. I don't think that he's necessarily one of the best middleweights on earth,

but he did a good job of making Ebelin rely on his striking, rely on his footwork. I want to make a big point about that. His footwork was very, very important here, having to circle on the outside for most of the first two rounds. He kept himself in safe distance. He didn't take too many big shots, and when it mattered, he used that threat of the takedown and then the grabbing of the subsequent kick to run Fabian Edwards over.

And then the point you made, BC, at the beginning, I thought, was right on the money. Ed Lynn, I apologize, starting to turn into a little bit of a pissing the fans off kind of guy, right? He had that moment where he was having words with Leon Edwards. And I saw people say that he had spat on Fabian. I didn't see that, although he was after he got pulled off by the referee screaming at him over the top.

I don't know what he was yelling or what happened there. But he's becoming kind of, I hate to use the word, heel a little bit. And I got to say, that's the best thing that could happen for him. That's the best thing that could happen for Bellator. Somebody that the fans just want to wring their neck who goes out there and continues to win. Johnny Eblen's making a name for himself. Well, I really like him because he's got QB1 moxie.

He's got that little badass edge that we're talking about. I mean, he's training. He's got Dustin Poirier on his corner. He's training with super elite talent in South Florida. And like we talked about, look, like the reason why I said this is what champions do is had he won this with his A game, you know, we could have praised his takedown defense, his top position ground and pound, all that stuff. But I like that he went in there and won it in an area that's not necessarily his lead strength

while also having to show a chin, an ability to deal with the cut. And like you said, he got hip clean with some strikes. That's what I need to see champions in, tough, close fights in which they're using their complete game, not just, hey, I'm going to ride my plan A until somebody stuffs that, and then guess what? I'm not that same guy anymore. This is exactly what champions same guy anymore this is exactly

what champions do and this is a nice win for him a very nice win for him now it will be interesting to see kind of what happens from here i don't know that there is any kind of obvious number one contender this was kind of a big match that they had been building towards i don't know really who else because he's kind of eliminated like the tokovs and the salters and everybody else in the world where's the fall vanderford luke would you the Salters and everybody else in the world. Where's the Fenderford, Luke? Would you take Austin Fenderford in a fight? Would you watch that? Has he earned a title shot?

I mean, he's kind of been on a losing streak. Yeah, let me check on that, Luke. I know. That's what I'm saying. He's kind of beaten a lot. It would be interesting, Ebelin going up to 205, challenging himself there for a little bit. I don't know what designs Bellator has on that or if they want to but there wasn't an obvious name they could push towards to get him a next finalist

you have one now all right well aaron jeffrey i had forgotten knocked out uh vanderford in the first round so that's second he lost recently right yeah that's two straight first round stoppage losses for vanderford when you include of course that musashi one where it just really really really did not go his way from start to finish there um yeah i don't i don't know if there's an obvious one don't forget luke i didn't talk to you about this because you were on vacation at the time uh vadim nemkov has announced his intentions to move up to heavyweight full-time so there is potentially that open slot there at 205 for a new bellator king or maybe a new Ash Jeeves uh defending champion maybe in

the future the Ash Jeeves the Alta Vista defending champion yes yes yes um BC how about Aaron Pico can we talk about Aaron Pico hell yeah hell yeah I will tell you this I will tell you I thought Aaron Pico this is the best he's ever looked now he was a huge favorite on the car which I thought was a little bit crazy, although we all thought he was going to win, but it didn't matter. BC, let me tell you what I loved about this one, and this is a cautionary tale for everyone.

We're talking about Raul Rosas Jr., but there's been many other prospects that will be many other ones in the future, and the Aaron Pico one is a real test case on what happens if you fuck it up early, because it has taken about four years plus to get right to get him to this position after just making a series of cataclysmic bad errors with matchmaking along the way but they stopped they rebuilt him they gave him confidence they gave him all the maturity

and the tools and the experience i take my hat off to aaron pico for rescuing himself i take my hat off to Aaron Pico for rescuing himself. I take my hat off. Stop sitting on your AeroPlan points and get big savings so you can be somewhere you actually want to be, like on a beach. Right now, you can save up to 25% in AeroPlan points when you book a trip to one of 180-plus Air Canada destinations worldwide. So stop sitting on your next trip and start saving on one. Don't miss out. Your chance to save in points ends February 23rd. Book at aircanada.com. Conditions apply. Introducing the new McSpicy from McDonald's. It looks like a regular chicken sandwich,

but it's actually a spicy chicken sandwich. McSpicy consider yourself warned limited time only i participate in mcdonald's in canada to brandon gibson i'm sure greg jackson's played a big role in that as well though i think brandon has been a little bit more of a leading name in that way they have done a tremendous job at rebuilding him and i can finally say with confidence i favor him to become champion in this weight class wow took me a long time if I didn't know if I was ever going to get to this point but the way he's looking dropping a Carvalho with an uppercut as he moved across from him and I'm talking about ground and pound we talked about how you know for example Bryce Mitchell lacking a little bit of that ground and pound trying to hold someone down and granted he's taking on Dan Ige very very top

name Carvalho was a good fighter but I wouldn't put him on the same level as a Dan Ige. Nevertheless, when you get Pico in top position, notice how he was able to do all kinds of angled elbows to slash and cut and then force turns and then finish off the job. Like, everything is technical. Everything is intentional. He's not making crazy mistakes, hardly at all.

He looks good everywhere he's finally filled out into his man strength Aaron Pico has I think now not Bellator NYC now he has arrived this is the best version of him yeah and I cannot wait to see him in a title fight well you said four years and I wanted to sort of jump in at first and be like well I really think he was ready after two years, right? There was that extra delay with the shoulder injury in the Jeremy Kennedy fight. And because Patricio Pitbull was busy moving down to Bantamweight, he could have fought for this title, to be fair, right now. This could have been him versus Pitbull.

Scheduling-wise, it didn't work out. But maybe Luke, extending not two years, right? Extending to four years since the back-to-back losses where it looked like he was a failed prospect the maturity is overwhelming and I think two years ago we saw the first signs of that maturity when he officially moved down to New Mexico and we saw the size of that horse is wow but really it was I think just changing his his life setup right getting away from his hometown area in California, resettling, becoming a man.

You actually see him now, Luke. He's kind of reinvented with the hair and the facial hair. He's always dressed to the nines in suits outside of the cage. He looks like a hitman, a businessman walking in there. But you said the two things that mattered most here, his ability to time that uppercut. It wasn't even a straight shot, Luke. It was like a curving uppercut that just caught him perfectly when you have those type of punches in your arsenal and a complete game and then it leads you to some of the most vicious ground and pound that we see in today's

game like that should be a tutorial video he he was just inside of carvalho's guard but he's landing the type of vicious ground and pound that people do when they're in full mount. It's these can opener elbows and it's just, it's nonstop. It's vicious. I mean, yeah, you're right. He's title ready right freaking now. There doesn't seem to be any hangover from that shoulder

injury. How good could a fight with him and Patricio Pitbull be? I know Pitbull, doesn't he have a surgery coming? He's going to be out a while, Luke? But that's going to be a great fight. Sick fight, and this is a good time for Pico to fight him because Pico's at his best and Patricio is not. You know, this is, I don't think,

I think we are well past peak Patricio. He's still very, very good, obviously. He's still very, very tough, but not the very best version of himself anymore. Don't you dare sleep on this guy. I'm not sleeping on him, but you just can't say he's at the peak of his prime he's not he's not at the peak of his prime but anyway i think it's a good point and if he's going to be out for a while then they got to make an interim title this guy deserves to be fighting for a title in this organization next no doubt about it and when he was losing and when he lost at bellator

nyc you know this seemed a very very when he lost actually toator NYC, you know, this seemed a very, very... When he lost, actually, to Henry Corrales, I was like, he might be done. Yeah, well, the NYC thing, I thought it was bounce-backable because that was what we sort of found out later, Luke, talking to sources close to the team. That was a bad matchmaking fueled by his father,

who was sort of running the show at the time. They had him one division up at lightweight in his pro debut at Bellator in MSG in 2017, and they put him in there against an experienced guy in Zach Freeman. He did win four straight fights after that, but you mentioned the Corrales loss, followed by that Boric knockout loss. Dude, seriously, Luke? Like, never forget.

I'll never forget that feature Brett Okamoto wrote about him, calling him the greatest prospect in MMA history, the most hyped phenom. And when you really look at the credentials, how dominant a youth wrestler he was, the fact that as a teenager, he's in wildcard gym sparring with Miguel Cotto and, like, not getting handled, like, actually standing up in there. How many people would have folded and fallen apart, maybe never fought again after those two knockout losses, considering that was three defeats in his first, what, seven fights? When you're the most hyped prospect in the history of the sport,

according to Okamoto, and you lose three times in seven fights, all three by stoppage, including once on a pay-per-view in your pro debut in Madison Square Garden. Luke, I gotta be honest, like 89.5% of people would never sniff anything again after that. Like that's destructively, you know, painful to deal with emotionally, physically, all that. You gotta give Aaron Pico the man credit for how he's turned this back around, reinvented himself, and is figuring out how to be the best he can be.

The best thing he ever did was that connection to the camp in New Mexico because he's leading with his wrestling. He's using his striking to set up the wrestling rather than going in there as a headhunter and getting caught, which was really the downfall in those two knockout losses. I echo everything you're saying. I think you're so right. And the mental resilience that he has shown, the self-belief, because I'm sure he doubted

himself. I'm sure there were plenty of doubting that happened along the way that he had to overcome in order to find himself in this position. But here he is looking resplendent and um everything he has done bc before we move along from uh this topic one more sort of combat sports note before we get to the big announcements well hold on don't skip bellator can i mention one thing please i want to shout i want to pour one out here mads burnell and daniel vichel which you had talked up would be a an interesting fight it was a featherweight tilt on this main card and by the way overall

i really enjoyed this bellator show in Dublin. I thought it was an excellent card. Dude, this was not only a fun fight. If you didn't watch it, Brunel gets a unanimous decision. I do encourage you to watch the 15 minutes of Fury. But Daniel Vytral retired afterwards after a very, very respectable 20-year career. To go out on those terms in an absolute stand-up war. I got to applaud him.

Vytal's always been sort of under the radar of elite MMA. You had to know. You had to be a Bellator guy, you know, fan to know him. But to go, I love it when guys do that. Win or lose in your last fight, just pour out the entire jug. Maybe don't run into oncoming traffic like uh like the korean zombie did so willingly but he dug in there gave us an incredible entertaining war and then walked away on his own terms like respect luke respect yeah super respect incredible incredible and by the way if

you've never seen his fight with patricio pitbull which was at one of the kimbo fights i went to for bellator he nearly nearly beat Pitbull, and it was only Pitbull with a Hail Mary shot at the end of the round or something that had brought him back, but Weishaw was all over him. So he was a very talented guy who maybe didn't get all the respect and recognition he deserved.

And also remember, not a lot of MMA fighters that make it to the high level coming out of Germany, even though it's Europe's largest economy, MMA just hasn't moved along as much in Germany as I think some of us had hoped. But Daniel Weichel has always kind of been a mainstay for that MMA scene. So very, very important contributor through Europe

and in the world at large. Glad you brought that up. Very quickly, if we can, BC, a picture over to you for the boxing results here before we go to point number four, which is about Zhi Lei Zhang fighting Joe Joyce for the second time and running him over even quicker than he did the first time you were like oh joe's gonna get this

one back um yeah i was yeah he didn't he didn't all right there are times when you go out on a limb in this game luke we do an okay bet every week and sometimes we got passionate picks that we are dead the frick wrong on look it, it's the theater of the unexpected. I thought Joe Joyce coming in at a more comfortable weight, still in shape, and the embarrassment of how bad that loss was in the first time and how he just got, he never got taken off his feet, but he just got pierced up, you know, all night long. I thought it might lead to something, Luke, called head movement,

something called, you know, a different strategy, defense, or maybe just the idea, if Joe Joyce came in guns blazing, could he defeat Zhang, who has, like I said on Friday's show, throughout his whole career, had given you reasons to doubt him. That's the honest truth. But let's give Xie Lijang, at age 40, the 6'6 Chinese heavyweight, the full respect. Dude, he went in there and finished him even easier in round three. Joyce was a target, you know, a stationary target. He got pieced up. And, Luke, how about Xie calling out Tyson Fury afterwards? Like, did we just see Xie Lijong's ceiling, or do you think there's more that he can do?

This wasn't his ceiling. He wasn't tested here at all. Like, he looked good here, and he's older. He's 40, right? Like, he's older. He's 40. He's a man. But this is the only credible name he's ever beaten, Luke.

He's like the most protected soft record we've ever seen. Okay, but he got robbed against what's-his-face? Hergovich? He got robbed against him. Okay, okay. But, like, come on. Like, I've seen this guy gas out so many times, dude. It's just ridiculous.

I'll say this. Are you not intrigued to see him fight other big names now? Because I am. I am now. And that's why I don't want this to sound like I didn't miss what we saw over these two fights. Zhang leveled up. Joyce, certainly, we found out who he really was. But Zhang has size.

He's got an accurate, quick, and powerful left hand. If he truly has buttoned up the stamina issues that have almost comedically put him, you know, close to peril a few times, yeah, it is actually going to be fun to see him against any... I mean, look, do you actually know what him and Anthony Joshua would look like, just for example? I don't think we really know, right? We don't really know, right?

No, we definitely don't. We definitely don't think we really know, right? We don't really know, right? No, we definitely don't. We definitely don't. And by the way, he was, Anthony Joshua, walking the runways of, I think, Europe, maybe New York, as like a Hugo Boss or Gucci model, something like that. Did you see that over the weekend? I did not. I mean, he's a handsome, strapping, just brick shithouse type of guy. But maybe get back in that Jim Luke andke and and and you know try to regain the heavyweight championship what do you think listen if i could get money walking on a thing versus having to fist fight some giant chinese guy who's beating the fuck out of people i'll take

walking down the uh walking down the runway 10 times out of 10 so i don't even hate him for that but all right neither here nor there now bc i want to get to the part of the show that this has been on my mind since i that was announced first of all remember dana white announced these so unless that's like independently corroborated you have to be a little bit careful about assuming that it's true but for the purposes of this conversation let's assume that it's true topic number four the ufc announced a series of matchups we're going to get to all of them, but I want to start with this one. UFC 296. On that card, this of course will be the Colby and Leon card. Tony Ferguson is going to fight Patti Pimblitt.

BC, my question is very simple to you. Is this shameless or brilliant matchmaking by the UFC? It's actually both, and it's really hard for me to find which side I lean on now good look Tony's like a day short of 40 years old he's lost six in a row there have been some absolutely violent brutal extended beating losses in there and then there's also been a couple times that he showed life he hurt Chandler early right he wasn't horrible against Nate in fact he had some moments and even in this third round submission loss to Bobby Green, Luke, I got lambasted by our audience for basically

coming out and saying as awful as this is to see a once great fighter who never truly had his true moment because injury robbed him so many times. Yes, he did win interim title and that is something in this case, right? And he beat future champion Kevin Lee to do it, but he never got Habib. He never really had his big moment. I think he rushed back from injuries all of that. But I saw something against Bobby Green that was still a spark that I basically said if he has to come back again, he's not as close to dying as I thought or that's the worst way I could have said that close to really having

a problem being in that cage. And I know a lot of people thought that was ignorant. They thought it was stupid. They thought it was me just setting him up to die. But at the same time, Luke, Patty Pimblitt has a lot of questions coming back and I wanted to see him against Frivola. And so did the steam roller. Instead, he's got his own really tough fight. I hope we get to in a second. It is both at the same time, Luke, it's a bit shameless because this is, you know, the potential here for Ferguson to lose seven in a row. But at the same time, were you surprised as I was to see a lot of people on the internet, including some couple savvy people, to be like, you know what? I actually think if Tony's not end game washed that he might be able to give Patty a problem here like

this actually might be brilliant matchmaking Pimblitt should win he most likely will is there a way this could go destructively bad for Tony absolutely him fighting anymore at this point despite my commending him against Bobby Green for showing a pulse is true it's close to the end Luke it's very very close but I think it's close to the end, Luke. It's very, very close. But I think it's both at the same time. I don't know which way this is going to go, meaning a destructive, disastrous defeat for Tony, or maybe he makes it an interesting, fun fight and really challenges Patty. But I do know this, if he was able to win here, this would trump old ass Tito ending a very long win streak by shocking ryan bader with a

submission win as one of the more unlikely ones only he's so much more beloved than tito that this would be a hell of an old guy moment if he pulled this off against the bright young prospect who might not be as great as his hype says he is yeah there are elements to this that are brilliant matchmaking and you have to accept that. Tony's going to fight somewhere, Luke, unfortunately. Maybe the Lava Shack Park in Latsun. I don't hate this one, though. I do feel bad saying that.

It's just like when I go to the gas station and say, no, I got a black liver, I can't eat this shit anymore. And I end up walking out with one of those rollers, Luke, and the one with the pancake cover and the sausage, and then know it's really good you know and then then i got a lot of i've never i've never eaten a 7-eleven hot dog i was thinking about that the other day i've never eaten one never once in my life dude i was raised on them that's quality time with dad like seriously that Seriously, that is. That is. Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I meant by your palate. I meant by your palate. I will tell you, BC, I have the exact same answer, but a different answer.

Let me tell you what I mean. The question I asked you was, is it shameless or brilliant matchmaking to put these two together? And you said both. Agreed. It is both. But I don't think people who are like, Tony could win this one, are really in touch with what's happening here. Okay.

Now, I'm not saying that it's not winnable for Tony. People have said, hey man, this is the most winnable fight Tony's been given in a long time. True, but if you're saying that, ask yourself why you're saying that. They're progressively giving him easier and easier opponents, at this stage anyway, the results are still he's getting finished i mean bobby green

i think has 20 plus fights in the ufc he's only finished two people tony ferguson being one of them right so keep that in mind here's the shameless side here's the shameless side the shameless side is and this is what bothered me on Friday when I tweeted about it. I said the fight game is brutal and people are like, oh, Tony can win this one. I'm like, guys, do you think that they made this fight with anything in mind about getting Tony back on the winning track? Is that why you think this fight got made? That's not why this fight got made. This fight got made in almost all likelihood because Tony Ferguson has still a big following.

The fans really love him. It is not, let me be clear about this, it is not at all inconceivable that he could win because I think Patty is still just not in the kind of place where you could be very confident in his chances. But they're taking a guy who has just fallen down and hit every branch on the tree as he has hit this sort of stage of his career, and they're taking what is left.

They are feeding the elderly to the young. This is matchmaking 101. This is the UFC asserting its interests in using a beatable but still very visible and beloved figure and then giving him to somebody they have invested a lot as a promotional entity to see if he can maximize his opportunities with it. In many cases, this isn't controversial at all, but I just feel like fans being like, oh, Tony can win this.

I'm like, yeah, they didn't make that with this in mind. They didn't make that with this in mind at all. However, I will say this, BC, which I think is kind of the interesting part about it. The reason why it's all so brilliant at the same time is that again you can't just assume Paddy's going to win it I do suspect he will I will pick him to win but at the same time if he can't beat Tony well then you've got a real problem with him too right like it's one of those situations where this is a layup for patty but if he doesn't actually do it you can you you already know what you've got with tony he's almost 40 years old the end is nigh in many ways right but with patty you still have some hope about maybe having him

turn some kind of corner with the ufc setting this up it's like if you can't even beat this version of Tony Ferguson, I'm not saying that they'll cash him out, but they'll have a very... Oh, you think they will? Either way, either way, either way, if he can't beat Tony, they will know right then and there what they're dealing with long term. Absolutely. And to be fair, we had wanted... So this is UFC 296, which is, you know, December, the big end of the year major,

December 16th in Las Vegas. And we had said this card needs another type of big-ish fight, another fight you can add to make a big three or a big four. Obviously, I would have preferred this against Matt Favola for either MSG or this December card. But this does show you the confidence level because, Luke, if this was anybody below Favola's name value, let's say it was a step up from the last opponent but not a name, it wouldn't be that exciting. We wouldn't be that into it. This is going to get people into this fight to see, either to see the last stand of Tony or to see the potential that he could expose the up-and-comer. This is brilliant match it really is it's actually brilliant and Luke um what do you think about this 296 card now

with these other late additions or do you want to talk about some of those other we'll get we'll get to them in just a second but the thing that I will say the thing that kind of kills me is I think there's a lot of fans giving themselves false hope you know like oh what about Frankie Edgar one last hurrah in the garden and I'm not saying Chris Gutierrez and Patty are on the same level. That's not my point. But it always ends badly. Like, they're giving him to Patty at the very end of whatever he has left. And it's like, this is what kind of bothers me for Tony.

You know, speaking as someone who I haven't talked to him in a long time, but I did for many years. He gave you the gift. What was the gift again, Luke? What was it? It was something to work on grip strength. Have you? I don't even know where it is, candidly. I'm not sure what I did with it. He gave you the gift. What was the gift again, Luke? What was it? It was something to work on grip strength. Have you?

I don't even know where it is, candidly. I'm not sure what I did with it. It's right here somewhere. But the point I wanted to make was, BC, it's like, dude, there's no way, because he never got to unify against Habib, there's no way this guy made the kind of money he was supposed to make in his career that he should have made. And that fight against Justin should have been stopped long before it ever was and because of those two things he has now faced what can only be described as inexorable decline and to go from like interim title and now all the way down like guys who fought for a title maybe in case of Olivera guy who was a champion and to Bobby Green who's a very good fighter but not a devastating finisher he finishes him off and now you're at this stage of it it is it's a little depressing for me to watch if I can

just be honest with you even if you can get there even if he can get the redemption he's not going to get pay-per-view points for this he's not going to get a big paycheck for this though that window has closed and they're feeding him to a guy who is kind of trying to justify popularity to watch that decline for me has been, it's been, it's not been very fun. If I can be honest with you. Best case scenario, he looks like Jordan in a wizard's uniform. Worst case scenario, he looks like an adult film star coming out of retirement 10 years later. Look, this is what it's going to be like. You know what I'm saying?

It's just going to, it's not going to be good. I will say this. Let's, let's say one last thing about it. You kind of indicated it too. I think say this. Let's say one last thing about it. You kind of indicated it too. I think you agree. If Tony wins, if, not only is that devastating for Patty, dude, it wouldn't change his fortunes. It wouldn't change anything else that I just mentioned. There is no five fights and a title shot coming for Tony.

But if he wins, he's going to blow the roof off that place on December 16th in las vegas true or false it'll be one of the more ballyhooed hero wins right obviously the like you know maybe randy couture upsetting tim sylvia is the highest level of like of an old guy hero win right where it's just unlikely but they pull it off because you love them so much. I mean, to be fair, Tony in the last couple fights have been getting Diaz brother level pops. He has, Luke. People love and adore what he stands for,

what he's been willing to spill in the cage. And, you know, he's been such a big company man, but never quite got the big prize at the end. And I mean, maybe I'm wrong. He did get the fight against Gaethje. And that was a time where he was still on the win streak and all that. But to your point, he left a lot of himself in the cage.

A lot of it. Most of himself. That was really bad. But okay, here we go. This could be the last hurrah. I suspect that it's going to go well for Patty. But if it doesn't, it's going to be quite a memorable night. Now, BC, we go to topic number five because you want to discuss

some of the other fights on that card. We have fights that were announced for that card plus some other ones, but let's start with the other biggest fight on this card. Steven Wonderboy Thompson taking on, ready for this one, Shavkat Rachmanov. Holy mother of God.

BC, a lot of different ways to go. Do you like the matchup? Do you not? What does it do, more importantly, for the division? Yeah, I don't normally see you bringing in Mary's name like that, Luke, but I liked it. Look, it's just sort of like they want Shavkat to get over. He's potentially the next big thing in this division. So you put in there against a name who's still got a certain amount. Look, this is good matchmaking.

But, Luke, I did see a lot of people upset at this fight. Can you echo that at all? What are people upset about? What are they upset about? Shovkat's 6th, Wonderboy's sitting at 7th in the rankings. What are they fucking supposed to do? To me, it's perfect matchmaking. What are they supposed to do?

Yeah, I don't get it. I don't get it in that regard. I mean, Shovkat should win, but who did he fight last time he didn't look he didn't look like right which is a tough out and did he did he not look they look human at times am i misreading my you're not you're not misinterpreting that at all now they they're common opponent wonder boy kind of you know lumped up jeff neal and uh shop cot ultimately put it on him in ways but remember he would walk into stuff and just get tagged constantly in that fight so that's why this fight is interesting these guys are both close together in ranking one is kind of coming one is going but the bigger part as you're alluding

to is like dude rakmanov is very very skilled but if you're not careful about distance closing against a guy like wonder boy he's going to set you on fire. It's actually a great challenge for him. Yeah. Yeah, I'm into that huge. You know what fight I like even better than that, Luke? I guess you want to move on. Tell me. Oh, you got more to say? Let's keep talking about Kazakhstan. I'm a big

Shavkat guy. I just, this is the only thing I wonder about this one. Assuming Rachmaninov wins, I haven't seen the odds. I suspect that he will. If he does, and he looks pretty good doing it, does Wonderboy retire? He's 40, I believe. Yeah. No, it's hard to tell because, again,

it's different from the Watterson-Gomez conversation, but when you know you still have it to a certain level, you can obviously talk yourselves into the idea of, man, if I just put it together for one camp, could I beat somebody way up here again? And that allows you to linger. But in reality, should he lose this and be stopped, it would be a big wake-up call about what's really left

and who he still is and ask him. I mean, sometimes the love of the game takes over, but yeah, I could see Wonderboy considering it, Luke, I could see him considering it and going out while he's still got some fun. It's hard to do that, man. It's hard for these guys to do that. And I, and I say, I understand, but obviously I don't really understand what that, how do you replace the drug of that rush of the fact that you feel so important, you're doing media,

you're going out in front of the spotlight. How do you replace that i don't you know what i mean look i mean what if somebody took away your microphone tomorrow and they were like that's it dude you're done you know go go sell insurance or go back to writing about mma you'd be like but this is what i do this is what i love i'd be sized to sell insurance i'd be sized yeah i'm teasing i'm teasing i'm saying pornography pornography is really the way i would you know just I would become a pornographer the boom mic guy

does he get paid well Luke? that guy that holds the thing over the cooch you gotta wear a radioactive suit to do that job I know that you don't even know what's flying around that room but ok neither here nor there BC what else on this card tickled your fancy

because there's some other ones I can list them if you want but I'm gonna guess it's the Ian Gary Vicente Luque fight yeah dude BC, what else on this card tickled you or fancy? Because there's some other ones. I can list them if you want, but I'm going to guess it's the Ian Gary, Vicente Luque fight. Yeah, dude. I also saw people not loving this. Is that because of the teammate factor? So the teammate factor does make it weird. And the thing is, I've seen them both there,

but I don't know how much they train together. Vicente Luque and Ian Gary are both out of Kill Cliff FC, which of course is in Deerfield Beach, Florida. We've been to that facility many times. It's very, very nice. Here's what I know, BC. Vicente Luque will probably be able to get Gilbert Burns to corner him and maybe like, you know, some other coaches, but Henry Hooft won't, like he won't get in the middle of that, I'm going to guess. So like Ian's going to have to find some other group or whoever to corner him it just it's you know and i saw people like tagging aljamein sterling and marab being like take a lesson guys i'm like shut the fuck up you fucking dolts it's completely different than that scenario it's not even remotely the

same as that scenario two different gyms two different ethoses two different relationships what the fuck are you people talking about? Well, I don't know. Dude, Gilbert and Kamaru were pretty damn close, and they did the exact same thing in the exact same gym. Wentz had to split up. Yeah, that's their relationship. That's not Aljo and Marab's relationship,

nor their relationship to Ray Longo. None of those things are the same. So I'm like, oh, well, this gym did it. Yeah, that gym did it. What the fuck's that got to do with Ray Longo's gym? Nothing. There's a question that old aging wrestlers always ask younger ones to sort of indoctrinate them into the business. They say, are you here to make friends or make money? Serious question. Serious question.

Are you here to make friends or make money? Because if you're here to compete, I'm not trying to sound all Dana White. If you say look, under no circumstances, whatever, I'm never going to fight this guy. I do believe that the company has to respect that, but I also believe that you could suffer from that. You could be held back from

that. It's just like in our jobs, Luke, if our boss is like, look, we're going to need you to travel the next five UFC cards, and we're like you know i'm sorry i just i i can't really pull that off it's one of those things they might respect yeah dude but traveling extra is not the same as fist fighting somebody you have built a life relationship around i get that the work they chose is a fist fight but the work they chose is also competing in martial arts to figure out who's the best in the world so again if their choice is also competing in martial arts to figure out who's the best in the world. So again, if their choices is just, is always going to be, no, I'm not going

to sit here and clown them. But I do think at some point, Luke, if you don't have any other options, I guess Aljo does if he moves up in weight, but if you don't have any other options and you want to find out if you're the best in the world, it's a competition at the end of the day. Yeah. I mean, but but also like tell me what the reason was that this fight had to get made i mean don't get me wrong do i think it's a good fight sure these are two talented welterweights i'm not i'm not complaining about it on that level and again if both of them agreed to it well then i guess that's that i'm just saying was this a fight you were like dude we got to make this fight like that's the fight that they have to make well

of course not of course not and also just kind of aping what is in the promoter's interest in this particular case is fine, but that doesn't make it right for everyone. Every gym, people don't realize this, every gym is very different, and there's often a unique set of balances that go into making it all work. And the smaller kind of more family gyms,

like Longo's gym, any kind of guy fighting another one in that gym has much more severe consequences than a gym like Kill Clef, which has way more people coming and going out of it. And it's a little bit more transactional in that way. And so if it's okay by these guys, I'm not here to stand in the way. I think it's a good fight. But people being like, oh, well, Aljo and Murab should take notes. No, they shouldn't.

It's a different situation. Well, I'm not here to justify clowning on the internet because, again, Aljo and Murab made the decision, and I'm okay with it. They made the decision. But, again, there are consequences to that. These guys, Machado, Gary, and Luque are ranked 10th and 11th. Obviously, though, Luque could have come down to people turning down the fight offers. Maybe these two were just the most available and were willing to fight.

Either way, I really like this fight. It's going to tell us a lot. Now, Luque did bounce back with a win against RDA after losing two in a row and sort of for a moment, you know, plateauing. Now we're going to see where he's at, and I think the bigger storyline is obviously if Gary can package this win after the one he just had against Magny, D-Rod before that. Luke, how big of a leap? Look, we can't ignore his potential star factor.

It's massive. He's only 25. If he beats this version of Luque, how long before he gets to that top? How long? How many more? That's a good question. That's a good question. i thought you had a seizure there look you still with me it was a long i'm thinking how many more if he beats luke a probably two

three more something like that right would you agree i don't know i don't know you never know you never know i mean colby's still fighting for titles in this division so maybe it's going to take longer than i thought but yeah exactly i don't know he wins and dude here's another problem too if colby wins which i don't think is likely, but if he does... 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. They're going to do a fucking immediate rematch. They're just going to.

They're going to. There's no way they're not going to do that. All right, let me get your grade on this card now because I wanted 296 to be a major because it is a major, right? Here's what we got. Leon and Colby in the main. Pantoja, Royval, the co-main,

Ferguson versus Patty, Shavkat Wonderboy, Luque versus Gary, and Cody Durden versus Tagir Ulan-Bekov. As it stands now, what are you rating that? Solid 8.5, I think. So like a B+, A- area? B+, A- territory minus territory yeah something like that i just don't love the main event is the problem i don't think it's a bad fight it's just not the one i think the division should be having i'm with you um and look they added uh didn't they

add yeah so they added the 295 for vola finally got his fight what do you think about Matt Favola versus the red hot Frenchman Benoit Saint-Valent are you doing skits and bits again? No well I'm half French so I am allowed to speak in the native tongue just like when we ask your wife how to pronounce Leroy so Luke

what do you the famous Hispanic word Leroy he didn't get Patty but this is a banger of a fight dude isn't it this is great i think you took the words out of my mouth he didn't get the fight that we had kind of hoped he would all right so that that's that ship has sailed but the guy they gave him i mean you can't say this fight's gonna suck i don't know how long it's gonna last i don't know what it's gonna look like except it's probably gonna be a crazy blood bath for as long as it lasts. Of course, this will not be a 296.

It will be a 295, the Jon Jones Stipe card at Madison Square Garden. So at least for Vola, he also really wanted to get on that card, which is what he told us on the RSD couch. He really wanted to get on that 295 card. So he did get that. He just didn't get the dream opponent he was looking for. But he got a much tougher one, dude. But Mois Stp saint denis as i mentioned before i think he takes a little bit too much damage but he is improving rapidly he's young himself and he is an absolute marauder

constantly pursuing the fight a a good match for matt frivola to put it mildly i've seen a lot of people say they don't like when we call jack della maddalena jdm luke are you okay with with bsd for for benoit yeah by the way don't care if they don't like calling him jdm i'm gonna do what i want and then also okay that's good bsd bsd i'm a little less moved by that unless you are all right well i had said all along luke that this 295 msg, to answer your question, it's weird. BSD's weird. Not everybody has to be GSP, okay? It worked really well that one time, all right? We don't have to do that every single time. Back to this, I had basically said that I love the combo of the Jones Stipe with Yuri Alex for the 205 vacant title, and you basically could put crap underneath

that. If this stands for 295, and remember, we're we're paying 900 luke for the nosebleeds we got that killer main and co-main combo we've got mackenzie dern jessica andrage we've got favola saint denis and the rest of the matchups as of now feel very second rate you still okay with this this feels major-ish to me with those two fights but for your palate is this enough for 295 i mean i'm not i think the thing is i'm not paying for tickets so i have such a different feeling right i mean i'll say this for the average ufc customer this is definitely i think for the most part giving them what they want the average ufc customer still has a significantly high degree of interest in john jones and in particular the Jon Jones-Stipe fight.

Certainly, we already talked about that co-main for the light heavyweight title. That's a fantastic pairing. There's a couple of other bangers up and down this card. We just talked about one they added with Frivola and Benoit Saint-Denis. So if you're the average UFC customer and this is something that, and those are things that you care about, there's a lot to like on this card. For me personally, I love the Favola fight. I love the co-main.

The main, I could give or take a little bit on, but has it sold out yet? Have they sold out MSG? Do we know? I mean, I don't know. That's just such ridiculous prices. $900 for the nosebleeds is absurd. That's regular. Just to remind people, that's not secondary market. That's at such ridiculous prices. $900 for the nosebleeds is absurd. Just to remind people, that's not secondary market.

That's not StubHub. That's general price. Mikey put in our chat last week, what did you say, Mikey? You spent almost $500 on the SEC championship game? Like 2017, yeah. I mean, I've seen people spend $500 on the Super Bowl, Luke. I've seen people in boxing for very, very big Mayweather fights, you know, be like, look, I paid a thousand, but they're also sitting usually Luke. And like the,

you know, the lower level for that, the first, the first 30 rows on the floor, we're literally talking about the nosebleeds, regular price, $900. Dude, that is so, that's a gamble, man. That is a gamble that you are. That is, that's take some balls. Did that take some bolas, Luke, some payload days, some levels. Okay. Some payload days. Is that what they call them? Payload days. They, where I come from. Yeah, definitely. Okay. Can I also ask you about this, the two fights that are one announced in one rumored for this December 2nd fight night card, Luke, you into this?

Well, yeah. So let me set it up here. If I can there, you, as you indicated, there's a December 2nd fight night card and Luke? You into this? Well, yeah. So let me set it up here if I can. As you indicated, there's a December 2nd fight night card, and there was two fights that, well, one was officially announced, and then one, I think, has been reported. So the ones are Rob Font taking on Devison Figueredo. This will be Figueredo's first move into 135. The other one, to me, is much more interesting, BC, which is Sean Brady taking on Kelvin Gastelum at 170 and sean brady of course who sat on our rsd couch the second fighter ever to do it this is a great fight in

both directions i know kelvin gastelum was able to get his return to welterweight going in the right direction although somewhat controversially because chris curtis got ahead but no that was a 185 right so that didn't even count he was supposed to fight shavkat but then he had to pull out right he had to pull out so this we still don't know about him at 170, so let me correct the record there. We still don't know about him at his return to 170. Sean Brady, we think, no issues at 170, but he's kind of, after that loss to Bilal Muhammad, he was supposed to fight JDM, and he got staff again.

He's had staff a few times now. He just hasn't been able to kind of get right again since the Chiesa fight, which also people have questions about because he got kind of messed up on the feet my point is bc big questions in both directions a lot to prove high stakes i love this fight a great crossroads fight i really can't wait to see i think it could be a gnarly fight too because we know gastelum loves to to bring the fight luke and i wouldn't i wouldn't expect him to try to be shooting on Brady. I expect him to try to be keeping this on the feet. Let's see how much Sean Brady has leveled up or if he can overcome Gastelum with his wrestling, but I think it's more important here for Sean to

show, you know, the combination of head movement and the increased boxing. I'd love to see for how long he's out. I'd love to see what he's working on, Luke, because getting to know him briefly, as we did for the RSD, dude, this guy is a driven maniac and sean i say that obviously with a con as a compliment this guy is coming after it uh i also love what you mentioned in that rob font fight because it's about time we see what figuerito's next move is turns out he is going to bannon wait luke this is an interesting welcome fight you know rob font still still packs a huge punch. I have no idea what to expect from Figueredo in this division.

What about you? I don't either because he's also older now too. He's closer to 40 than he is 30. So what is that going to mean as he moves up? Is it too little too late or is he going to settle into the weight class nicely because he was cutting too much weight at 125? Rob Font's going to be a great test, a great test for that. Look, I know we've got to speed up and finish this show,

but we do have to talk about that really important news about that former middleweight champion. Well, let's figure this out here. We're going to have to punt one of the segments. I would rather keep Have You Seen This Shit today, and we can push DMs to Wednesday. Are you okay with that? Yeah, I like shit a lot.

All right, so Let's do that. Before we push to have you seen the shit, then let's quickly just do this one last kind of mini-topic here. It was revealed last night by the New Zealand Herald that former UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya had pled guilty

to what they call drink driving. Now, it wasn't an egregious case, but it was one where he admitted the crime. He gets sentenced in January. I think he faces up to, you know, I think a small amount of jail time and a modest fee. I don't think he'll have to see either of those. He admitted wrongdoing.

He admitted he had been having dinner with friends, had a few too many drinks. I think he didn't crash his car or anything, but there was like a stop on the road, like a roadblock. They were testing everyone, and he was somewhat above the legal limit. Again, he has acknowledged wrongdoing. BC, I'll give you the floor on this one. What kind of thoughts you might have about it? All right. One thing I want to say up front, and this is, believe me, this is not trying to justify, you know, getting behind the wheel when you've had drinks. Believe me, it's not. That's the, you you know the most dangerous thing you can do on your daily basis but the legal limit in the states is what luke

usually around like 0.08 and and and the legal limit in australia is much lower at 0.5 so this this hit would have been just over the line in terms of his blood alcohol level in the states it's much more egregious in australia because they have that more of that gap so look this is a bad offense i think the larger point though in how we're trying to investigate it is is what effect did this have and how like where was his mind truly was this literally luke i mean this was what 23 days before the fight was this yeah august 19th the day of the offense was augth. Okay, so was this him going out for dinner with his friends and had, you know, one drink too many? Or is this a major red flag in terms of the preparation and where his mind was at and how much did it play in the fact that he beats Pineda in such dramatic fashion

and then has to kind of come down and fight this guy that they expect to destroy? Was he where he needed to be mentally? I don't know, Luke. Obviously, this is not a good development. Nobody's going to stand here and justify and support drinking and driving. Very close to just being over the limit for what we see in the States, but I don't think that's enough information to say, oh, see, that's why he lost.

Oh, he's more like Paul Locosta than we realized. A little red winder in the training camp. No, Luke's more like Paul Locosta than we realized. A little red wind during the training camp. No, Luke, I don't know how to feel this. Obviously, it's not great, but does this justify to you what was outside of a perfect game plan and execution from Sean Strickland? Just, it felt like an aberration. It felt like that was not Izzy. Does this help you justify and understand and explain that?

Because I got to say, I don't know the answer here. No, he still got beat. He got beat fair and square on that night. I mean, that doesn't change my opinion at all. You just watch what Sean did. Sean beat him. And even Izzy in his own YouTube video when he was interviewed by his own brother about it was like, yeah, he just, you know, he stopped me from ever getting going.

Like, he acknowledged that it was Sean and, of course, to a lesser extent, Eric Nixick who really had his number that night. Nothing about that changes for me. The one thing I would say here is, again, I'm of sort of two minds, because everyone likes to take anything that Izzy does and it turned into some kind of 9-11 level catastrophe. And it's like, well, let's be clear. He didn't wreck his car. He didn't kill anyone.

Driving your car when you've been drinking is irresponsible. And he is paying the price for that. But we need to be as fair to the context as we possibly can be. It's bad what he did. But all these people pretending that they've never... Have I driven drunk before? Yes. Was it stupid? Stupid and irresponsible? Of course it was. All of these things are really bad.

But let's not catastrophize something that didn't end up being one. The thing that I think really is the red flag for me, BC, Things are really bad, but let's not catastrophize something that didn't end up being one. The thing that I think really is the red flag for me, BC, is two things. One, he was drinking during camp. Now, again, not a significant amount, and far be it from me to tell him how to live his life, but I've just not talked to too many trainers who recommend that at all in any capacity during training. You're not supposed to do that. I'm sure it happens time to time, but for a guy who's got a title fight in three weeks,

that doesn't seem very wise, number one. The second part, it kind of gets me a little bit, is, and I made this rule with Jon Jones, like, I know a lot of guys who got drunk driving charges, friends of mine, in their late 20s, but by around 30 or so, they began to kind of clean it up. And to your point, to your point, this was barely over what we would consider

the limit in this country. Like, very, very modestly. So, you know, again, catastrophizing shouldn't be the thing. But he's 34 years old and in the middle of a fight camp. Like, at 34, especially when you have a fight in three weeks,

you know, and again, he's acknowledged the wrongdoing, but that just should not be happening. Also, he was drinking when he was in Rickus' face. And so do I know if anything's happening in his life? I have no possible way to make any kind of judgment or assessment. I have no clue. I'm working with very incomplete information.

But what I would say is I hope that there isn't a larger pattern of things that these are little trickles of information i hope that these this is just aberrations that get you know magnified and it's no more than that we will see in due time yeah i i i do if i had a guess luke i do play in more into the idea that he didn't take this fight anywhere close to the level of serious that he needed to just by all the comments you know that this seems to close to the level of serious that he needed to you know that this seems to at least tip the hand in that direction although like we said is it one extra glass of wine out at dinner i don't know but luke this is a crass statement i say that up front this just shows me even further that john jones is the goat and i don't justify any of john jones's behavior

but this guy doing hard recreational drugs during the week of huge fights, and he's just unflappable. And while I don't say that to, you know, make him a hero for doing all that because John has issues, and I think John took his eye off the ball so many times and is lucky he doesn't have five, six career losses at this point.

Luckily, he didn't die in a drunk driving crash. Luckily, you know, his family still talks to him, all that stuff, right? John's's very lucky but at the same time dude john is the goat luke nothing stopped that guy from getting his hand raised nothing dude i just want to point out to people i i'll and i'll never forget this still you'll still see it a little bit although the amount of praise john jones gets john jones gets now is absurd but when i was defending him back when he was still just fucking up routinely I remember people being like yeah he only wins because he's got long arms and I'm like you're the dumbest motherfucker on the planet that's what you are if you think that you're just a

fucking idiot like you cannot be helped you cannot be helped like he is so ridiculously better than just having a long reach um so you know to your point that he can have again we're not celebrating it but that he could be engaging in all of this distracting and frankly, like destructive behavior and then still beat all those guys at two Oh five is just hard to understand and perform like a dog in these fights. I mean, what he seriously, what he pulled off in the first gust of some fight to hang on and finish that fight and win it is insane. That's insane, dude. That's wild. That elbow saved

him on everything. Alright, BC, before we get to have you seen this shit, let's remind everyone that the busy fall season, of course, is now just around the corner, and you might be looking for, let's say, wholesome, convenient meals for jam-packed days. Well, folks, Factor, America's number one ready-to-eat meal kit, can help you fuel up fast.

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These are fantastic, man, and they're ready in like two minutes. No doubt about it. Of course, as you said, you can refresh your healthy habits. You can choose from 34 or more weekly flavored packed. Again, I'm going to say it one more time. Dietitian approved approved ready to eat in two minutos yeah uh level up with the gourmet plus options prepared to perfection by chefs and ready to eat in record time treat yourself to upscale meals with premium ingredients

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to get 50% Dude, 50% off? They're really doing this? It's a great deal. Alright, that's code combat50 that's K-O-M-B-A-T 50 at factormeals.com slash combat50 to get 50% off. Alright BC, the floor is

yours, my friend. Alright, we're going to push off the DMs. Thank you for your questions. We'll get to that on Wednesday. For time purposes, I scoured the globe, you know, the high and low, all that other bullshit. Here's the feces I found. It's going to be great.

You're going to love it. Let's enjoy. All right, Luke, so you want to be an ultimate fighter. We start at the apex for UFC Fight Night. This is where the fight should have been stopped by Cary Hatley. Look at that crimson mask, Luke. Damn. I mean, imagine looking at this and being like, yeah, this one should go another round.

We need another round of this. Yeah, I mean, this game is brutal. There's no doubt about it. Hey, how about this? Highlights on the UFC undercard. 39-year-old Tim Means' business did the dirty bird all over Andre Fialo to snap a three-fight losing skid. Here's the finish.

Hey, one of my okay bets, I got right. I was pretty happy with this. He looked good. He looked good. Dude, when Tim Means is moving downhill on you, he looks sharp. Fiala's a tough dude. This is a good-ass win for him, so love to see it. And he needed it, too.

He was in rough shape in his career. Muhammad Usman, the brother of Kamaru, continued his winning ways in the UFC, sending Jake Collier to a fourth straight defeat. He also slammed him on his damn head, Luke, if you didn't see this. Let's see. I mean,

kind of on his head. I mean, yeah, yeah, straight up on his head, Luke. He pile drove him down. There you go. All right. Snatched up the single and then turned it over. Yeah. Bryce Mitchell got a big win, but he deserves his own entry here for some of this sound that we saw. Here's Bryce Mitchell walking to the cage and getting shredded up by biz ping who recently had him on his podcast

go on bryce sing it brother he's a wild man in the octagon and outside side note he believes the world ends tonight it's been prophesied in the Bible. Also says that there's no such thing as gravity. One thing, there is gravity when he takes people down, though. Luke, if you hadn't seen it, Bisping had more than enough of Mitchell. But before we get to here, here says he was getting introduced, raising the book, the good book, Luke. I love that book.

And screaming freedom. At 5 feet 10 inches tall, this mixed martial artist also weighed in 146 pounds in 17 fights. His record's fifth. I mean, Luke, BizPing tried to mention on the broadcast when both Kimo and I think Joe San also did it. They walked to the cage back in the early days with the full wooden cross on them. Oh, yeah. That thing was heavy. Dude, I love this book, Luke, and this lifestyle, but that's aggressive.

That's pretty aggressive for a UFC cage. Do you agree? Also, that Bible, that was the one he grabbed out of the hotel drawer. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. The Gideon's Bible that they dropped off or whatever. Yeah, yeah. I'm with you on that one.

And here, of course, Luke, was the much-ballyhooed post-fight interview where Mitchell went places. Who had declared the winner? Told me through the fight. How do you feel? He's the hardest hitter I've ever fought. I didn't expect him to be so fast and move so well. And his grappling defense is so good, too.

I brought this bible in here tonight because i do believe satan has taken over this earth and something specifically i'm talking about is his fires in hawaii i'll be donating five thousand dollars to daniga tonight to give the people in hawaii because i know he lost friends they lost their homes they lost their children and i love these people with all my heart. And we have to show Satan that he can do nothing through the power of Christ when we come together. Let me ask you about your eye. Obviously, that connects with a couple of good shots there.

Open up a cut above and underneath it. How much did that empower your vision? Oh, that's a scratch, man. That ain't nothing. I know what you're talking about. Hey, also too, these fires in Hawaii, I don't believe that they were natural. I believe they were man-made.

They're trying to take the land from the natives. And I want Dan Ige, a native Hawaiian, to lead this world in prayer against the power of Satan. Well, congratulations on a great fight. Dan Ige, congratulations as well. Christ made you a, Thug Nasty, tremendous performance, my brother. Please let Dan pray. Ladies and gentlemen, your winner, Thug Nasty, Bryce Mitchell. His faith means a lot to him.

Brought the Bible and the Octagon. Please let Dan pray, Luke. Correct me if I'm wrong. Did he say no thank you? Yeah, he did and I obviously there's got to be producers in his ear going like let's get out of there so Luke let's be fair here I'm not gonna clown him I know he goes heavy I can't there's no controversy here at all zero none nothing but Bisping did the best he could with a crazy ass situation where you've got a guy

on national television saying that the wildfires are just spouting conspiracy theories basically on national television which fine it's MMA that's every weekend but then asking to be led in prayer guys they don't have time for that on the broadcast it has to move along they have to get all of their ad inventory in or

the sponsors will be on their ass about it it's a fucking contractual rule they have to they're not going to sit there and indulge someone for their praying you can do that on your own time guy no it's tough luke it did i feel overall like this went too far yeah so i guess where where is the line in a ufc post fight interview because sometimes we do see people trying to like read a script of people they want to thank and the announcer's like no no no no hold on i just want to ask you about the fight you hear dana say all the time it's a fight game people could say whatever they want

i don't know i i kind of feel like this is where ufc could or should step in more often and just be like hey guys let's keep this to the fight because the one thing about the ufc luke did agree or disagree with their politics or not man this isn't even a true statement. They try to keep politics out of there. I know you're going to tell me I'm crazy because they don't. No, they don't do that at all, dude. They don't make any attempt at that. They do sometimes. And this isn't politics.

It's more... Well, it is politics. It's conspiracy. It's religion. It's a big hornet's nest, Luke. This is just... I'm just saying, here's the thing. Bryce can say what he wants afterwards for the most part.

I don't think that's a big deal. I really don't. I don't agree, obviously, that these fires are man-made, but whatever. He can say what he wants afterwards for the most part. I don't think that's a big deal. I really don't. Like, I don't agree, obviously, that these fires are man-made. But, you know, whatever. He can say what he wants. But, like, people being mad at Bisping for not indulging him in prayer. Like, let me just say something. As somebody who's not Christian, I'm not interested in praying with any of you either.

Like, I don't mean that to be, like, harsh. But I'm not interested in this. This is not a thing that I find of my time. And if you want, like, to do that, by all means do it. Just do it in a way where it's your thing, not I'm conscripting everyone around me to have this moment, especially when they don't have time on the broadcast. That's fair.

We pray for you often, though, Luke, us on this side. We do believe that. Thanks. Again, I'm not telling people not to do that kind of stuff. Just the broadcast has to move along. Like, what do you want them to do? We've got to move this show along. We've got five more minutes. Let's get through it here, Luke. Let's go over Hey, the NFL's back in session

again, Luke, which means there's going to be vicious fights. Unfortunately, somebody did lose a life in an NFL fight recently. We're not going to show that one. Did you read that? I mean, that's just ridiculous. So they lost it at the stadium. It's not clear if they lost it in a fight, but yes. Wow. Well, here, let's celebrate this ridiculous

49ers crowd brawl. Do you see this shit, Luke? Let me see. Yeah, look, he takes this woman by the hair and just chucks her down the stairs. Watch this. Oh, boy. Wow. I didn't sign up for that. Wow. I mean, just what a – look at this fan base. Just nothing but Nobel Prize winners here, boy.

Yeah. Mathematicians, scientists. Look at them. I mean, should we cut off alcohol sales at these games? I don't know, but let's go to the Patriots. Dude, they don't sell alcohol at soccer games in Europe and in South America for a reason, bro. Yeah, there's a reason for that.

Definitely. Hey, let's go to the Patriots crowd. These ladies got into it, Luke. You're putting your life on the line going to an NFL game these days. Oh, man. Look at Gronk right there. She's pissed. Don't sit down in front of them.

Oh, that's the problem. You sat down in front of them. Yeah, here we go. Oh, hammer fist. Yeah. There we go. There we go. No one's going to step in here? No one's going to step in and help?

I just think that's how Patriots fans celebrate wins, as I understand it. That's what that dirtbag franchise does. Well, Luke, Major League Baseball, they do much more fun things than beat each other up in the crowd. Check out this balloon animal that made it on the field, Luke. Which animal do you think this is from? Oh, Pico's horse, actually.

There we go. Yep, there it is. Yes, oh, poor thing. It lost it there in the wind and breeze. I'm so sorry to see that. That is fantastic. That was really quite regal. Oh, there it goes.

There it goes. Yeah, look at the unit on that guy. All right, let's go over to Bellator 299 from Dublin. Listen in on Johnny Eblen and Dustin Poirier Reflecting on how gnarly this cut was that we talked about The product of my hard work I need more of them I need more belts You got up off the stool, we all got back to the corner, sat down, we're like, dude, this is f***ing really bad. It's really bad. Everything's fine. Everything's good. You guys sit. I leave.

You're doing great, dude. You're doing great. Oh, s***. That is so bad. Wow. That's bad. That's a bad cut. Damn, dude. They could have stopped that fight. He understood how to, like, move his weight. Yeah, they're not strong over time he would have got

worse for him wow that is gross and yeah he's just consistent at like getting good position but i feel like as he got tired dude that's disgust they could have stopped that fight instantly i think i saw his brain dude yeah i was, I was... That's a little much, BC. I'm getting a little squeamish. Alright, we'll keep it going. Hey, we mentioned Johnny Eblen after stopping Fabian Edwards. He heard it from Leon Edwards. Let's watch.

Okay. I smell a cross-promotion fight in the GeoCities cage. Luke, you into that? Hey, it's good promotion for Bellator. I like that. I like that. Let's keep it going. This might be the KO of the night from Bellator. Levon Chokoli sent Sabahomasi to hell. This front kick, right? Yeah, this is just, you know, from the Silver Belfort. Damn. Oh, what a...

Dude, he's turning into something special. LeVon Chokely, that's a name you want to pay attention to. That Georgian kid can fight. Here's a replay of it, Luke. Watch this in slow motion. It's insane. Ugh. Bop, as Luke would say. Bop.

Bop. Hey, let's go over to Mads Bernal, Luke. He finally said before his fight what we've all been thinking about BJJ for years. No. No. Actually, it's funny because I'm good on the ground, but I actually really think jiu-jitsu is soft. I actually don't like it. It's weird to say, especially how it is today. I really don't like how jiu-jitsu, like how the tournaments

and how they call it fights, how can it be a fight when nobody's getting slapped? That I don't understand. I really don't like how the jiu-jitsu is today. Look, he called it soft as shit in another interview, too. Are you down with that? I'm kind of down with that, actually. Mads Brunel is speaking my language a little bit.

Oh, wow. I thought you'd defend grappling. Well, would you defend this comment from Mads Brunel after his win? I got hands, baby. F*** y'all. If you meet me at the bar, all you lads out there, drinks is on me because you got... Hey, hey, hey, I'm not done. I'm not done. Because all youads out there drinks on me because you

I'm not done. It's all you do it out there. You need to be drunk year-round with all your You know what a massive toe infection I've been dealing with for two weeks that it is dropping My balls because I haven't yanked one out in a week. It was pretty much... I knew this was pretty much going to be a boxing match. Because what I see from his first time in Bellator to now... All right, we can close there. All the fighting has ended.

We can call it a day there. I guess we're out of time, BC. Yeah, Mad said he hasn't yanked one out in a week, Luke, and he also said the Irish guys have to get drunk to be able to handle their women. Interesting topics of conversation. Well, Luke, our show was so good we ran out of time, so hopefully we can

repurpose elements later in the week. But you and I will be on the grounds tomorrow night, Las Vegas, Canelo vs. Charlo this Saturday on Showtime Pay-Per-View. Can't wait. Check us out hosting the press conference Wednesday, the weigh-in on Friday.

We'll be calling the prelims on Saturday on the Showtime Pay-Per-View countdown show. We might even record a room service diaries in between. Look, we might do that. We might do that. It is possible. So keep it locked here, youtube.com slash Morning Combat for everything.

You guys know the drill. We don't have time to go through all of it, so I'm just going to wrap up and say thank you so much for watching. We'll have more content for you throughout the course of the week. We'll see you in Las Vegas later. And until then, may all of your gains be loyal.