MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC Vegas 83 Picks | John Nash Talks UFC Lawsuit | Fight News | Morning Kombat Ep 525

Episode Date: December 8, 2023

On Episode 525 of Morning Kombat Luke Thomas and Brian Campbell get you ready for the weekend of fights. The guys start by making their picks for the weekend. They also break down some recent fight announcements before breaking down PBC's new deal with Amazon. The boys are joined by Bloody Elbows John Nash to discuss the UFC Lawsuit. What will come from this? As always we close out Fridays with Dead Wrong.  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

Reveille, Reveille, dogs. Look at us now, tip to tip. This is our life. This is our passion. That's the spirit we bring to this show. I'm Luke Thomas. I'm Brian Campbell. This is Morning Combat. Oh yeah, can you feel it, right?

Can you feel what the hell this show is all about it's in your face hole once again it's friday december 8th 2023 i don't know what else to tell you folks we didn't give ourselves these awards you are looking at the best damn combat sports show that they ever created it's morning combat not not feeling too confident about the three p not feeling too confident well you know i don't know if you were confident about the first one either. Hey, I'm Brian Campbell, the confident one of the two coming at you. That is my pedantic, angry co-host. But I love him.

I don't care if you do. His name is Luke Thomas. Luke Thomas, we pre-recorded this one due to time issues. So if, you know, anyone perished on the scales this friday morning um we don't have it in today's show but luke but we're cheering for them all number one and two how did you and your family celebrate pearl harbor day yesterday luke pearl harbor day um i celebrated as i usually do which is not an observance. Although I have seen letters from Iwo Jima, which is a semi-related

military movie to that conflict, and it's great. It's really great. It was a fantastic... You got me into that. I didn't see Black Hawk down yet, but I did see... I read them letters. Just you wait, buddy. Just you wait. Alright, here's the deal, though, folks. I want to tell you a little bit about this episode of

Morning Combat. Why? Because it's presented to you, the viewer, by FanDuel Sportsbook. It just makes me happy saying FanDuel Sportsbook. Make every moment more with a fantastic sports app that you can download today. The FanDuel Sportsbook app. Get after it, folks, if you know where I'm going with that one. All right? I hope you do. Thank you very much.

Luke, what else do you want to say to these people? We're going to okay bet it, and it's playoff time, so you better have brought your A game. Mm-hmm. You'll be. I have an interview with Shovkat Rachmanov I'd like to plug. Oh, hey, plug that. Plug me, Luke.

Plug it. Let's go. Let's go. What do you got? It's always tough when you're talking to one of these guys over zoom and then also in another language so you know you got to have some managed expectations about how much you know helpful information you can generate but sell it get the people excited okay all right had a had a short ish conversation with shavkat rakmanov got a few different answers on some decent questions, I hope,

that I think folks have been looking for. So give it a check. Check it out. Yeah, youtube.com slash morningcombat. I've got a fresh chat with Matchroom Sport Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn, who's going to preview this Saturday's Haney Pro Grey pay-per-view on DAZN. Can I ask a question? React to the big PBC news that we'll get in today.

And also, Eddie Hearn chiming in on all things ryan garcia versus oscar de la jolla don't miss it back to you i was gonna say which promoter did eddie hearn take a shot at in this interview because he always takes a shot at one which one i mean there was some shrapnel aimed at oscar al but you know and then there's a lot of like pro eddie comments but i gave him the floor to do that i asked the tough questions i massaged the ball carriage a little we previewed the fight it's a good look i always have fun with eddie hearn i always say he's my favorite of the used car salesman right i feel like when he's lying to me he's using the most truth and you know luke lying is usually a prerequisite for for promoters in the combat

space i love lying it's great lying down that is speaking of lying luke or or reacting to the liars of combat sports promoters we also have a fantastic guest today you want to get people fired up or what yeah john nash will be here in about 45 minutes or so to discuss uh his latest report on uh how the uf UFC owners made how they paid themselves while they were growing their business and what things we might have learned in the process I'm going to ask him about the other stories coming out on bloody elbow about these leaked emails between the UFC big heads from about 15 years ago very interesting stuff leaked text messages going on a lot of leakage Dude, I just want to say very quickly because I want to move the show along.

It is astonishing how much information we have learned about the business from this one court case. Granted, it's gone further than we had imagined in certain cases. We didn't know it was going to go this far, but it has. Haven't even gone to trial or settlement yet. Look at how much information we have learned we don't have to guess what was it like then we know we know now not up for debate anymore indeed so check that out we'll dead wrong you to close maybe throw in some extra fan subs from wednesday if we have time i know i promise but don't be if don't don't think that i'm not above breaking a promise on this show

luke don't think that all right all right oh oh yeah i'm i'm fully expecting one let's go i promise i won't interrupt chuck mendenhall anymore on this show luke i promise all right that's what happens sometimes and do you promise to do that by just eliminating him from it uh luke morning combat dot store great merchandise house how about this great hat right here i'm sure you're wearing mk under ruse at the moment but do you think at morning combat dot store anyone yet has purchased our new mk jerkins uh lotion dude we're literally okay here's how stupid we are. We're actually selling masturbation cream on our site. Branded masturbation cream. We're literally doing that.

I'm this close to being a pornographer. I mean, what have I done? You've got your director's hat, Luke, and your MK Hub sweatshirt ready to go. Yes, you can find all that for the holidays over at morning combat dot store. You want Christmas shout outs or Kwanzaa. Hey, I'll even do Hanukkah.

Check out cameo.com slash Brian Campbell ahead of this holiday season. And I'm sure those Luke tasty Thursday live chats were very profitable for two keys future Luke. So thank you very much for all of that. I'm going to start the show unless you have anything else to say. Let's rock. Let's do it. You look tired and angry, Luke.

I got up super early this morning for an interview for an MMA fighter who canceled it 15 minutes before the interview. That's a 6 a.m. interview that you're talking about, the big one. Yeah, but I had to get up well before that to set everything up for my daughter, too. So it was a bit of an issue. And yeah, I was real bitter about that. Here's a great question. Will you be reuniting to do the interview, or can we disparage this fellow for the future and rest of this show's history?

So I'm supposed to try again tomorrow morning. Let's see how that goes all right there you go right there thank you very much hey let's get right into the show we got a big one for you today on this friday pre-taped but it don't matter mikey more miles cbs sports on the ones and twos as always topic number one is easy and it's about to come right at you it's our head to head betting segment every single friday luke Luke Thomas and I do five picks apiece. You know what it's about. The end of the year, somebody is going to go to an awful music event

that they don't want to be at with dock cameras. Or maybe Luke will wear Project X UFC rock sneakers for the first five on-camera appearances in 2024. Either way, this one's called. Okay. Bet. Well,

Luke, you ordered the R Kelly last week and got the golden sombrero. Oh, for five. Were you? Yeah. I was hot and yellow Luke. And you, I've gone two and three, which is not great.

But get fired up, folks, because we have two weekends left in OK Bet. And if you didn't already know, this OK Bet segment, by the way, brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. Make every moment more with the fantastic FanDuel Sportsbook app, where you, like KY, not the jelly jelly can get on there and compete against us head to head five picks a piece do what you will luke you're updated standings right now bc in first place 85 90 and one luke is 82 90 and four uh mathematically can you catch me luke you you went much further school than i did yes i can catch you

yes do you have anything any comments about that your strategy anything um i look forward to making you suffer yeah all right luke you're not gonna catch shit maybe a cold from the train station maybe a loose std luke from your own house something you're gonna catch not me though not me you might catch a predator chris hansen you're going to catch. Not me, though. Not me. You might catch a predator, Chris Hansen. You're not going to catch me. Luke, I get to go first or second here. So you know what? I'm going to go first this time around.

Head-to-head, five picks apiece. We got UFC Fight Night from the Apex on Saturday. We've got a DAZN Boxing pay-per-view. Hey, maybe you went off the menu, Luke. Maybe we got some bare-knuckle bullshit. We're about to find out. Top of the first one in our head-to-head categories is the main event we gave each other the latitude to choose between the ufc fight night bantamweight main event between song yudong and chris el glopo gutierrez

or luke what i picked the zone pay-per-view boxing saturday night san franc Francisco and 140 pound champion Regis Prograde defending against unbeaten Devin Haney the 25 year old moving up from lightweight where he's the undisputed champion Luke as we stand right now our fine friends over there at FanDuel Sportsbook have odds on this fight are you ready for it?

Are you ready? Ready. That's me just buying time here we go Lukeke i got it minus 350 dennis uh devin haney according to fan duel plus 275 is regis pro gray look it's playoff time and i got a win here luke i'm taking chalk devin haney's gonna win this fight it's gonna go the distance he's gonna have to deal with regis Progray's power, with his aggressiveness, with his want to make this fight a brawl. But as we talked about on Wednesday's show, Devin Haney is just too skilled, too long, has too great of a jab. And even though we do have questions still about whether he can carry his power up to this new weight class

and whether he is really built for a true fight, should it have to get there? And look, these are the closest odds Devin Haney has had in a while. I think Devin Haney not having to make that cut anymore as a very large lightweight at age 25. We may actually see him look even better on this night. And that has nothing to do with the respect I already have entering Saturday for Regis Progre. I don't hold that last fight against him as some sort of big reveal as to whether he is on the way down at 34 or not. Either way, any age, it's Devin Fahaney's fight to win,

and I think he does it by clear, unanimous decision. That's my pick. There you go. Fair enough. For my main pick, it's real simple. I'm going to pick Song Yedong. We've talked about this on Wednesday at nauseam. I do think that Gutierrez, while he is much further away in the rankings, does present to Song Yedong a particular kind of problem rooted

in how to solve for someone's dynamic kicking game in a particular leg kicking game, both in volume and placement and everything else. And I think this is going to be a great opportunity to see what Song Yedong can do. But even if he doesn't do a great job of that, I just think he has too many ways to win. Pedro Munoz dropping him with blitzes. This is the kind of thing that Song Yedong in particular excels at, and his patience, I think, has really paid off. You saw that in the Ricky Simone fight, at least early in the San Hagen fight before the cut. He's a new guy, one of the least heralded guys in this division for some good reason, but now that might start to change. I think we're going to see a little bit of him moving the

chains on that. Give me Song Yedong in the main event for ufc all right let me update you on fan duels odds for young song you don't here out of china let's go over to minus 430 you don't is your favorite for fan duel plus 300 for gutierrez a little wider than we saw the other day but i don't disagree with that pick. In fact, Luke, as we transition from main event down to favorites, I'm going to stay on the UFC card. Not going to go the direction, though, that you did with Yudong here. I'm going to go with the first fight of the night, the damn curtain jerker. It's an all-Brazilian affair over there in the women's strawweight division

as former and victim Adam weight and champion high-end Dos Santos moves up in weight, makes her UFC debut and welcomes fellow Brazilian Talita Allen car. Luke, do you know a lot about the fighting styles? Because this is one of those hashtag vibes, hashtag must beat Luke type of picks. I'm not going to pretend though,

that I'm going to be breaking this down with any type of real analyst podcast flair do you don't have anything to add to this light right just got to pay attention to alan carr uh multiple time black belt world champion pan-american champion world nogi champion the real deal holyfield when it comes to sport jiu-jitsu in the around 2016 or so so uh this is you know she's not making a full push into jiu-jitsu in around 2016 or so. So this is, you know, she's now making a full push into jiu-jitsu. We've seen that that can be some good stuff with it, but some things that hold you back. I don't think she's been quite the submission phenom in MMA as a result,

although obviously she can, you know, she's good, and obviously you would take that seriously. So we'll see how that goes, but you kind of want to see what role that plays in the end. All right, Dosato, the favorite is minus 162 plus 126 for Alan Carr. I'm going to take the favorite here, the Invicta defending reigning champion, no longer defending as she's moved on to the UFC. But Luke Thomas, big opportunity, first fight of the night.

I don't have the stats in front of me. I know Mikey's been crunching a little bit of numbers, but I tend to try to pick the curtain jerker,ke and i'm on fire picking these fights all right on fire now let me ask a question before i reveal my pick am i allowed to pick in the haney pro gray one for this one because mathematically the odds would eliminate it but usually those mathematical odds we describe for mma bouts not for boxing yeah so i saw your pick for the favorite luke but since the odds have been hovering around the minus 300 area and since this these are for a boxing fight for a boxing fight these are these are i won't do the thing it's like eddie hearn when i interviewed him yesterday and he's like oh there's a basic pick them you know a pick them

fight on sorry it's not a pick them fight but it's not your typical boxing fight where it's like gonna be a close fight but the favorite is minus 900 this is it this is gonna be a this has the potential to be a real fight I'll let you go with this look go for all right good then I'll keep it so then let's just talk about it real quickly BC is gonna make a better case for any boxing boxer than I ever will but I like Devin Haney's chances here. I know that there is a lot of consternation about his fight with Lomachenko and whether or not he not only won it, but what it showed. Fair enough. And I get that there are questions about how's he going to handle Progray's power at 140 pounds. Fair enough. I don't have all the best answers, but I just feel like Devin Haney, even with an open stance case that

we have here is going to be able to move around the ring keep pro great at the end of his jab or at least keep him guessing missing you know really try to work to find him basically is what I mean and in the end he's going to get picked apart over the course of a decision I do I love this fight more than I to your point more than I, to your point, more than I like a lot of boxing main events, but I do respect Devin Haney's skill. I think that's enough. All right, Luke.

Because I also picked Haney for the main event, those will cancel each other out. That's not going to help you that they're canceling each other out. You sure you want to stick with this? I'm okay with it, but it's not going to help you. Yeah, I'm okay with this week's picks. I mean, they can't be any worse than last week, right literally can't be any worse are you hoping that what you go three and two i go two and three and then you got a chance to beat me the final week like how do you envision

winning this you got two weekends left um i've done more tape study for this one and next week than i i usually do so i just feel like uh it's possible. These are two cards I know, relatively speaking, better. I should be able to pull it off. Okay. All right. We'll see what happens there, Luke. Those are our favorites. Those are our main eventers. Let's go to the underdog. I'm going to go to the boxing card here. I'm going to go to this co-main event on DAZN pay-per-view.

It's a prospect versus prospect matchup. It's a little bit interesting. Unbeaten Liam Paro is the small betting favorite on Saturday from Australia as he welcomes in Montana Love. Now Love is a prospect from the Ohio area that we first saw in that Jake Paul Tyron Woodley rematch, or I'm sorry, the first fight, the undercard there. Since we've seen him get propped up by MVP promotions and featured a few times, he has bounced around a bit. He did suffer the first loss of his career,

but it came via DQ in his last fight when he threw his opponent over the top rope. The draw he has in his career is against a quality opponent, but it came a long time ago. So, Luke, to me, this really does feel like a 50-50 fight. Liam Parrow versus Montana Love, and I'm going to get Montana Love at plus 168 by FanDuel. I'm going to take the underdog. He's a southpaw.

He's a mover. Liam Paro has looked good up to this point in his career, but not great. Paro probably best known for sparring Shakur and Devin Haney trying to start the controversy that he knocked Shakur out. Either way, I'm going to go underdog here. Montana

Love plus 168. To get it done, I think he's got something to prove coming off of that DQ loss. He's going to have to step up big here in San Francisco on Saturday, but I think he does, Luke, despite any hate or ashberry you may have for him. That's a local San Francisco joke, Luke, if you didn't know, okay?

Yes, the hate and ashberry district. Alright, BC. So so for my underdog i you know again i don't really thrive in the these picks i don't think the math works out too great in my favor but i'm gonna say for our friends over at fan duel they have jamie malarkey sitting at plus 162 um i'll take that i'll take that i'm trying to look up and down this card there's a couple different directions you could go the summakey sitting at plus 162. I'll take that. I'll take that. I'm trying to look up and down this card. There's a couple different directions you could go. The Sumidergy at plus 118 is an interesting one,

but I like this one for a couple of reasons. Nasrak Hakperast is on a two-fight win streak. And by the way, they both have recent wins over John McDessie. That's a real thing. But the thing is, I think Hakperest, while well-rounded, Malarkey's got a little bit more push to his game. He's a little bit more offensively minded, takes some risks that has caused him problems.

Jalen Turner gave him plenty of problems, although Jalen Turner's very good. But I'm just pointing out, when it comes down to like dogging it out down the stretch, I don't think that Hackperest is lacking in that direction. I just think Malarkey is a bit of a bully for much longer of the fight. It's that kind of a thing. I think that might make the difference in the end.

So give me the Australian, Jamie malarkey. There you go. The underdog pick locked in for Luke, Jamie malarkey, my, uh, going the distance or not the over under,

as we like to call it, as we transition here at our fourth pick, I'm going to stay in that UFC card. You mentioned mentioned it tim elliott as a late replacement against suma darji is a hell of a flyweight fight here but my bet here luke is that we do not go the distance gonna roll the dice a little bit i'm sure i'm not getting my you know i'm sure i'm getting plus odds for this bet but both of them are submission submission threats. Elliott fights in a wild style. I know this is only a three-round in-between kind of filler bout. Tim Elliott, the small betting favorite, I believe, up to this point.

Luke, did that surprise you at all? Let me double-check that. Yeah, Tim Elliott is a minus. No, that doesn't surprise me at all. He's the betting favorite as the late replacement. We go plus 118 on Suma Dergi. I'm betting, Luke, you you're gonna see a finish here let's take the under oh oh oh interesting interesting that's a that's a bold call

i can see it going that way because suma dergi has like reversals he's got good subs but dude tim elliott was gonna wrestle and control him suma dergi in his fight against um danger matt, his wrestling was not great. Not great. All right. For my distance or not, BC, Mikey tells me I've gone 22 and 12 in however many fights. What is that? 34 fights. In 34 fights, I've gone 22 and 12. I have to say, BC, I'm nearly, not quite, nearly 2-1 in this one, which means my record is pretty good, simply by betting the strategy that if I pick a women's fight

where they have a lot of decisions in their record, I can just bet that it will continue. I'm going to keep my Cal Ripken streak alive here. Give me Dos Santos versus Alan Carr going the distance. You know what i'm gonna love the most about this victory luke the end of the year concert victory for me in this head-to-head okay where i'm going to od on magic mushrooms and make you take me to the uh emergency room yes would try to ruin that night wouldn't you you really would yes you know week to week people

people don't realize luke that you're very liberal and how you forget the rules to this segment and i'm like, yeah, go ahead. Pick Devin Haney, even though he's not in the main event, go ahead. Last week,

pick I'm a soft two weeks ago when he's a massive favorite, go ahead, do this or that. Luke, go back to the well with these ladies. You're going to see a finish and it won't be for me watching at home. Okay. You're going to see a finish.

Yeah. I mean, I listen, I've gotten it wrong 12 times in the last 34 fights so yeah well yeah this is gonna be i mean look what will what will you say about yourself publicly when it becomes real that i have defeated you over a full calendar year i mean considering i would fill these out like you know like i write down the address i'm mailing something to in line at the post office.

I'm not really going to feel that bad. Why have you been from the beginning? So difficult to put a smile on to understand the rules, to get your picks in in time. I mean, there is something at stake here, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, don't get me wrong. I mean, here's the other part too. It's like, I've not made peace with the concert because A, the game is still on and B, you know, you haven't even picked it yet. Like, I don't even know what it would be, right? Like, so there's just a question there of like, I may not completely hate it. I may just be like, whatever.

But the reality is this, and I told you this, you kind of blew me off over text, but I really meant it. It's like, dude, the fact that I even let it get this close is so fucking shameful that i almost like i don't want to lose but i'm almost like i kind of deserve a little bit of a slap in the face because you went back to the well the safe picks all the time i go i've picked by vibes luke i've picked by hashtag feels and look where i am today yeah yeah i don't i don't believe that you haven't actually gotten at betting advice or looked for betting advice at any point during this game solicited and or received betting advice i see i have done has have been put in the work okay and that's hey listen i don't consider that insider trading i consider that i consider that

just fine that's legitimate well luke i don't mean to insider trading. I consider that just fine. That's legitimate. Well, Luke, I don't mean to break the hearts of anyone we really like on this show, but my final pick KO or sub for topic five here of OK Bet. Luke, Anthony Smith is going to get stopped by Khalil Rountree, and it might be brutal. This fight will end via knockout. Wow. I don't think that's a bad bet at all, man.

I don't mean one strike, Luke. I just mean like it's going to be an Anthony Smith fight, right? Like he's going to come out game. He's going to get hurt. He's going to cover up. And there we are. That's where we are. I didn't want to bet on this one if I didn't have to.

You know what I mean? Like I like Anthony Smith, 35,, 35 in four months, almost five. Like, he's getting up there, man, a lot of injuries. The vibes are telling us right now how to pick this. Luke, what are you going to tell us? I'm feeling those vibes, too. And, again, I like Anthony Smith more than I like almost anyone in the game, but I feel kind of similarly.

But I didn't bet on that one. So I went for KO or sub. Give me Tetsuro Taira taking on, I believe, Carlos Hernandez. BC, I think that this one might end in sub. Taira is a very good submission practitioner. I don't know what the odds are actually on that, but FanDuel has him as a pretty considerable overall heads-up favorite at minus 590.

I think he gets it done via sub. There we go. Carlos Hernandez. Either one could score a sub via sub. There we go. Carlos Hernandez. Either one could score a sub, and you can win this. Those are our OK Bet head-to-head five versus five picks of the week. And, of course, this OK Bet segment has been brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. Make every moment more with FanDuel Sportsbook. Luke, do you think because he has been such a, I don't know, I mean, a consistent faithful servant to this segment that KY,

nay jelly should go head to head with the winner. The, the, the week at, you know, the last after, because our final head to head thing is that night, December 16th, where we have UFC two 96, we've got the final Showtime boxing card that same night with david murrell jr you and i are put that's where we let it all hang out right we just go for it does ky face the winner over the holidays what does this or do you not care i mean if you want to if you win and you want to do some shit like that you can do that i'm just telling you now once

uh i win if i win i'm not doing that i'm like it's i'm like done by the time if it if it ends up being for me okay thank you for your dedication i'm more of an astro glide uh type of dude anyway there you go that is okay bet john nash nash still to come hang with us here's our regular latest news to react to and topic number one today on this Friday how about this for some fight news and announcements of varying degrees of importance Luke we'll start for that UFC Saudi Arabia fight night card next March Mohamed Mokia versus former flyweight title challenger Alex Perez your thoughts um first of all the site fee is going to be pretty incredible 20 million dollars which I know we discussed a little bit on Wednesday so if you're

wondering if how they're going to survive at the bank that's how they're going to survive they're going to make an absolute insane dude think about that where could they take this card right and get a 20 million dollar gate where could they do that? Literally nowhere on earth, right? Except this scenario. So just that alone is pretty remarkable. But Mukav, I like this step up. His fight against Tim Elliott, to me, was a real graduating point

to deserving something more significant. Alex Perez is good, flawed, a little bit more wrestling-centric, very good scrambler, athletic, athletic quick it's a tough test for mokaev is going to be real strategic in the way he fights this one we were talking about problem solving before this allows mokaev to do it while still kind of sticking to his strengths against a fellow grappler great fight great fight yeah great escalation for mokaev in terms of the level of uh you know former title challenger right here you get by you continue to climb, but I like this matchup a lot.

A couple weeks earlier, February 3rd, we got a rematch. Luke, Molly Meatball's back. Molly McCann, after a long layoff, will take on Diana Belvita for a second time. Gun to your head, Luke, who won and how the first matchup? I don't even remember. Can I be completely honest and say I don't even remember? I got to look at what happened in that one. Yeah, you have to look it up too, right?

The 33-year-old Molly McCann fought Belbita back in 2019 with the UFC. Belbita won a unanimous decision despite being deducted for a point in round two for grabbing the cage. That was in boston at reyes versus weidman was that one of those uh dave portnoy patty nights or was that not i think so yeah i think so by 2019 i think so i don't know if that was but that's a yeah that that is what it is that fight okay will molly mccann uh plus or minus? Over or under? Here we go. Over or under? Future UFC wins. One and a half for Molly McCann.

Oh, I'll take the over on that. Sure. I'll take the over. Okay. I don't think that's... Yeah. All things meatballs right now. Luke, this is a big one.

So next weekend or the weekend after, what is December 16th? What is that, Luke? Is that a week? That's UFC 296, fool. You're damn right it is. Las Vegas. Maybe we win an award two nights later at the World MMA Awards at the Sahara. I don't know that.

But I do know this. Josh Emmett has a new opponent. We were debating that on Wednesday, who it might be, who it could be. How about Bryce Mitchell stepping in? Luke, this is one of those perfectly contrasting style matchups between two guys looking to reassert themselves in the larger title elite picture here at 145. I love this fight.

I love this fight as well, and it's really feast or famine in either direction, you have to imagine. Bryce Mitchell getting absolutely torn limb from limb by Ilya Toporia took some time off came back had a nice redemptive win against Dan Ige now of course that was a pitched battle and you know only three rounds if I recall correctly I don't believe that was all five you might want to double check that but either way you know was able to lord his grappling just enough against a very resistant and talented Ige to get the win.

This is on short notice against Emmett. Emmett has a wrestling background. He's very athletic, but a lot of damage, older. I think nearly 40 years old. Josh Emmett, in fact, currently sits at, just to be clear, 38. Yeah, 38. He'll be at 39 in March. So not far from that at all.

Love the fight. Love the stakes. Love the the kind of i never thought of it before great great fight great announcement in every way unfortunately luke january 20th first pay-per-view of the new calendar year for the ufc in toronto we thought we were getting alexander rakic versus jan Blachowicz in a key 205-pound tilt, maybe to announce a future title challenger or push someone closer. Blachowicz is out. First came from a Rakic tweet on X. Blachowicz would put on an Instagram long statement saying he had injured his shoulders, he needs surgery. He has been pushing through and fighting through the pain,

but it got to a point where he said, look, not for a top five matchup, need the surgery. He said, he'll be back. Tough blow here, Luke, because Rakic has been out a while himself. We kind of need, you know, the top end of this division to figure itself out, especially find out if a guy like Bohovich is coming or going. Now we ain't finding out shit. Yeah, I don't know what to say about this one.

I don't know who the appropriate fill-in would be. Anthony Smith might want it if he wins against Khalil Roundtree because I know he wanted that fight back. I don't know if there's any interest or availability, assuming he wins, and if he doesn't, I guess, again, Khalil Roundtree, I don't know. I don't know what you do in this scenario, so tough luck, and I feel bad for Jan Blachowicz because, dude,

he's starting to get a little bit older. Time is running out to have a meaningful impact I think he's what 37 38 something like that like he's way up there because he didn't find his best form until very late do you think he could go to heavyweight with that legendary Polish power and be quick and dynamic at the new division maybe maybe I think it's I don't not the craziest idea yeah he currently sits at 40 excuse me he's 40 he'll be 41 in february yeah buddy that's a bad injury in terms of the time yeah yeah seriously good luck with that stat hanging over his head here uh light heavyweights as we find due age later though uh report for march 9th let me get my fire fingers out because this one's scorching according to reports jack della maddalena

versus gilbert burns oh hell yeah luke thomas dude this fight fucking bangs i mean this is just what an excellent contest. Young versus old in terms of the division. Not like over the hill, but senior member of the class versus a junior member of the class. If Jack Dillam had a little, if JDM wins, I think he moves probably close to that top five space and it will be a huge, huge opportunity for him.

His best win by far, if he can get it. Striker versus grappler, obviously in something of a general sense. Gilbert Burns didn't perform well against Bilal Muhammad. Had that injury. Has been off for a while. Looking for redemption. We already know the story with him. Battle-tested veteran.

World champion in jiu-jitsu, in the gi, in the black belt division. I mean, just a fucking dynamite fighter in every way. Nothing about this fight fucking sucks nothing what what a contest speaks to what gilbert burns is all about because you remember after he lost to muhammad and he was very kind of open and honest afterwards and kind of like in the moment realizing like yeah i think i may have made a mistake taking this fight despite short turnaround injuries and all that comes with it against a very tough opponent but yet what does he do from that luke doesn't take a long time off doesn't you know take a stay busy which you know given his age and the fact that he's still very elite i

understand why he wouldn't stay busy but dude he's going back in the deep end of the pool and facing mr bob dobelina here this is fantastic matchmaking I love everything about Gilbert Burns as a man how about you dude Gilbert Burns's resume it's not going to be all dubs on that thing although this one certainly I think he's more than capable of winning this but again the the I don't know what the word is BC because it's it's just professional sport I mean I realize it's dangerous but it's just sport it's not you know it's not we're not at war but the in terms of the athletic courage i use that term sometimes i don't know if it's the right one but it's it's the best way i can describe it dude this guy signs up for

tough assignments over and over and over again you just have to respect it you really do you're gonna say this guy signs up for ko's i'm like that twitter handle is taken yeah rolling over and over again. You just have to respect it. You really do. I thought you were going to say, this guy signs up for KOs. I'm like, that Twitter handle is taken, Luke. Yeah, Roley. Roley's got that one. Roley's got that one covered. However he talks.

I can't even do a good Roley impression. You sounded like the third Diaz brother right there. A little bit, yeah. Luke, I like this fight. UFC 299, which I guess I'm assuming is March. I feel like this fight is going to suck, but it's a relevant, important fight, and so therefore you've got to have it.

25, former title challenger Caitlin Chukagian, who is really representing that older, not necessarily just because of age, but that older demographic of the former era of flyweight under Valentina Shevchenko. Now we've got a new era under Alexa Grasso, and Macy Barber is part of that era. Coming or going, young versus old, crossroads fight,

whatever you want to say, Luke. This is a big fight and an important one. I'm looking forward to it in terms of just moving that division forward. Also, February 10th, UFC Vegas 86, excuse me, 50K Dan Ige, maybe Eric Nixick's favorite student, taking on Lerone Murphy. You in on that one, Luke? Yeah, you know what?

Lerone Murphy has a win over Josh Kulibow. He seems to be a decent talent. He is what? He currently sits at 32 years of age. Yeah, sure. I mean, I don't think he's necessarily being set up here to look the best i think it's kind of like a get right fight for dan egate but we shall see we shall see next weekend by the way

in the men's flyweight division when your champion alexandre pantosia rematches brandon raw dog robo and if you haven't checked out my raw dog interview with brandon robo please check it out at morning combat we got to get him the we got to get him the beat-off cream. You know what I'm saying? We should just gift him right now the MK Jerkins, please. Brandon Moreno, the former champion, will serve as the backup next weekend for 296. Yes.

I almost had a knee-jerk reaction to say, like, as a former two-time champion, isn't he? Or maybe even three-time. I got to do the math again isn't he better than this or should he be better than this or am i being an asshole here it's not the meaning to do this it's not the meaning to weigh in a little bit it is a little bit it is i had an mma fighter i spoke to a high level ufc fighter. A guy who I would say is like title contention, right? Like that level.

And he told me he got offered to fill in for a fight as the backup. And the amount of money he told me that they offered for that was so small, I thought it was a joke. Like... Wasn't even half of a UFC fight bonus. Not even half of a UFC fight bonus. And I was like, fight bonus and I was like are you gonna do it and he was like no no I'm not I'm not gonna do that shit I was like why the fuck

would you now maybe they're paying Brandon Moreno more maybe his deal is different there might be a set of incentives in place where he really feels like it's worth it but I just this whole shit about like cutting weight and like oh I rehydrated i'll be fine the next time i compete there should be a limited and you know me like i feel like these guys if you're going to cut weight to get the advantage then you know you're making that deal and that's what the deal is but you still you should still be mindful you want to cut weight the least amount of times physically possible and so like just cutting weight for us what i think is going to be a small paycheck when you have another fight with Amir El-Bazi coming, I don't love that.

I don't love that, if I can be honest with you. I don't love it. Interesting. I think that there is a line in the sand unofficially where it should be where people are either too good for it or whatever. I mean, when you're a former multi-time champion, you're one of the UFC's announcers. I mean, what am I criticizing here? His want to compete, his want to be in shape and

go there just in case they need him where he can get a last minute chance to regain the title. I'm what, penalizing him for daring to be great? In some ways, I guess I am, but I sort of like, he's one win away anyway from getting another title shot, right? In theory, like. 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.

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Level up from bill payer to reward slayer. Terms and conditions apply. If he beats Amir El-Bazi in Mexico City, I think he might get another title shot. That's no doubt. I just want to say this, and people know this, but it's really worth thinking about. Every time you have a weight cut,

it doesn't even have to be a severe one. You're doing, like the more we learn about the damage done from weight cutting and again you can make short-term trade-offs about how much advantage it confers and what that's worth but every time we learn more about weight cutting the damage it does and this some of this is well documented but i think in terms of like the popular understanding of it each time you do that you are fucking with your endocrine system in a really substantial and dangerous way. The fight dietician, this is the guy who is an academically trained sports scientist. He is the guy who coordinates the weight cuts.

Huh? Are you talking about Mike Dolce? No, no, no, no. This is an Australian guy. He's called the fight dietician, but he's academically trained. He does the weight cuts for both Izzy and Volk, but he also does it for, he's actually going to be in Vegas for Edwards, for Leon Edwards. He does it for him and he's got a completely, I mean, down to the minute details, a plan for what safe weight cutting looks like, what your weight should be to get into the process, how to manage the process,

how to manage the recovery, all for minimal amounts of damage. He has a video out, uh, well, yesterday, if you're watching this about the, some sports scientists in Liverpool paid attention to Patty's weight cuts and cage warriors when he was going to one 45 and like the, the, the, the body readings they were getting from like, uh, enzymes, his liver was secreting and things they found in the blood. It was, it was on par for someone that was having liver failure or excuse me, kidney failure. Kidney failure. And he did this a number of times.

What kind of damage did he do doing that? I'm not saying Moreno was having cuts on that level and Patty's now a 155-er. I'm saying there's a cost to be, but you are, there's no putting money back in. You're only taking money out of the bank and you only have a finite amount. People should really consider weight cuts in that way i agree with you completely on that one right there uh let's go to topic number two john s nash right around the corner you'll be hearing from him

luke a big deal that we've been waiting on for what a year to find out this news we all know long time and showtime sports sunsetting at the end of this calendar year after 37 years. Final fight card, of course, will be next Saturday night from Minneapolis for Showtime Championship Boxing. But PBC,

Al Heyman's premier boxing champions, the promotional slash managerial unit that manages 150 fighters and roughly promotes half of the great fighters across this great globe. PBC has signed a multi-year distribution deal with amazon prime we don't know all the details but here's what we do know from the press release on thursday 12 to 14 events annually the first pay-per-view event

will be in march we do not know when the first overall event will be or if that will be that first pay-per-view event. But it looks to be, Luke, that it's smaller, at least schedule-wise, from what the PBC was used to on Showtime in recent years. But there is some reporting out there, including from Ariel Hawane, that Al Heyman has plans to launch a second fight series as well on a separate network with news to come uh and if anyone remembers back in let's say 2018 pbc had the showtime deal they had the big fox deal they also had the fs1 deal which kind of acted as if they're as like their own sort of prospect series will they bring that back will they keep using us to call undercards luke a lot of unknown in the future uh my phone's available and so are yours just the same but when we were waiting on this we've heard rumors of like really like four or five different networks at different points it's here it's real what's your

reaction to this it's um it's a new frontier they're not on they're not uh well again i guess we'll see what happens with the second deal. For folks who may not understand this, the deal calls for, as you kind of indicated with some of this, 12 to 14 events on Amazon for the calendar year beginning in March of 2024. But if you go back and just look at how many fights PBC does in a calendar year, it's 30 plus. So just by business of doing math, the rest of that has to go somewhere, right? Because the roster has to get serviced. And so that's kind of what I think Ariel Helwani is is getting at and i guess we'll see where that ends

up we've heard a couple names internally but we don't who the hell really knows at this point do the amazon thing is interesting um i am a prime member um i've been one because they have deals obviously through the washington post which is my local newspaper for whole foods any number of reason for one championship lean and explain in 2023 why you have Amazon Prime, Luke. Yeah, fair enough. Who cares? Yeah, who gives a shit? But the point being is you can obviously get one championship with it.

I don't know what kind of success Amazon is or isn't seeing with that. I like using the service. I don't know what it means. But now they're adding another space to the combat sports portfolio. The best thing I can say for BC is I do watch their Thursday night football product, which is like, this is the kind of own Thursday night now. I think Fox had it last year and I really liked their coverage

to be quite honest with you. In fact, I had tweeted a video that I had found someone explaining what's called prime vision. This is where you can watch the field on football for any Thursday night game, 11 on 11, and you can see when the wide receivers move, you can follow them in real time. They're route trees, and when they get open, they light up on the screen.

It's this insane way to watch football. I thought it was one of the most innovative things I'd seen in network or any kind of broadcast television in some time. But is the NFL seeing returns? I but like is the nfl seeing returns i don't know is the is amazon seeing returns i guess i don't know there's a hundred and like nearly 160 million subscribers to this thing many people already have a prime membership will they use it to watch boxing there's just a bunch of unknowns here that we really we really have no we have no way of answering i look i mean we're certainly not unbiased from the standpoint that we are paramount employees

showtime boxing is still here for one more card and we have called a lot of great fights for the pbc and and have enjoyed that but i feel like this is a big move not a lateral move not a backward move uh it feels like a big move in the modern streaming era. Agreed. Now, especially if Al can get a second series going. And, you know, part of yesterday's announcement, by the way, about this 12 to 14 dates will include shoulder content, will include live weigh-ins, like all the kind of, you know, pre-fight documentaries, the kind of stuff that we've been used to on Showtime, which is great to hear, by the way,

and intends at the very least to imply that there's a good budget here and that this is a strong deal. But with all the unknown in sports television, really in our business, to be fair, I mean, it has not been a great time last couple of months or this whole calendar year for for folks who make their money covering sports as we do. We've seen some of our brethren in the game have setbacks or, you know, like get laid off or whatever. And there's you know, we were also kind of fighting for our own jobs in a lot of ways in terms of the day-to-day and hoping. We still don't know what the talent will look like for the new PBC deal or whether we will be involved at all.

But I feel like this is big. The proof in the end of that will come in the matchmaking. But I don't lean too hard on the line that everybody's like well this will bring in all new boxing fans i mean i don't know luke but it's better the fights will bring in the fans not the platform you know what i mean it's a lot better than where showtime ended up as a result of the changes in the streaming game where it wasn't as easy to run into showtime, right?

It was, it was now becoming more of a piecemeal separate app purchase rather than part of a larger cable system where you, where you can pick it up as a premium option, but flip through the days of flipping through and finding stuff, Luke, they're not over, but that's not the future anymore.

There's, there's, there's, there's a big play that's happening here. And it was explained to me. I, I, I saw it maybe on Thanksgiving. So one thing that is kind of interesting is they were talking about why Amazon wanted to purchase having one of the NFL games on Black Friday, which had never been done before. And you can imagine like integration with their their shopping but it goes a little deeper

like if you just look at what the ads would be to like pay for amazon ads on a different day that the nfl already owns say thanksgiving it costs an exorbitant amount of money uh that's true and and there's good return on that but there it's it's they're somewhat limited so they had to spend more up front to actually get a day where that was not in the traditional calendar that the NFL had. So they had a bunch of upfront money. But during the game, there were no restrictions on ways in which they could integrate any kind of activation for sales or to, if you're watching online, to cater the experience

directly to your kind of shopping history. And I think that they did record shopping numbers as a consequence of this game so what subs what what paramount might have wanted or what again we don't even know why they sunset at all we've never really been heard about that but whatever they were looking for amazon is not making the same value calculation it's a very different calculation i obviously want more people watching than less i mean yes but the ways in which this deal will make sense for them i think will be a function of how it integrates into the wider amazon shopping universe yeah it could be interesting to see how that goes yeah those 12 to 14 dates for 2024 will be a combination of championship level broadcasts on regular amazon and of course

pay-per-view and i don't know if you mentioned it earlier, Luke, but one of the keys here is unlike ESPN plus to purchase the Amazon PBC pay-per-views. You don't need to be an Amazon subscriber to do that. So that is, I guess, an interesting wrinkle in that regard, but we'll, we'll relay more information as it comes. It's right around the corner. This, this launch expected for next year. So we'll, we'll happens with there but it does feel it does feel big so i'm happy to see that for pbc for my sport of boxing and the continuation of what was built by al hayman back in 2015 where they when they of course launched nationally across multiple networks

with the time buys that they had but since then al's been able to get the fox deal had consistently renewing at showtime and now another power move over to amazon prime uh i don't know mikey's got some smart cage jokes luke i don't know if there's gonna be yeah i disagree with him he's but he i was talking about the prime vision thing where you can see 11 on 11 and then you can see wherever the ball carriers move when they get open they light up on the screen dude it's brilliant to watch that way i've it's a dramatic service he's calling it pbc amazon smart cage but the problem with the smart cage it does they don't add anything to the broadcast it's like this uppercut went 19 miles an hour what the fuck does that mean what does that even mean whereas watching 11 on 11 and receivers and

you can follow their route trees and everything you're adding something is that for everybody no but you're adding something to the broadcast that's that's completely different on the boxing broadcast remember when espn got the nba contract around like oh two 2003 and their first big innovation was putting that camera in the paint that shot upwards and then they would show replays of people dunking and you can try to see if you can see their bag you'd ever do that high on you could try to see if you could see their bag. You'd ever do that high on a couch, try to find NBA bags? Do you remember when Fox would light up the puck in hockey, and you could see the shooting star?

I like that. People didn't love it, but that's what I mean. They were at least trying to do something there. That one didn't work, but hey. The NFL took camera-rigging strategies from the XFL, so people are innovating out there. A lot of camera rigging strategies from the XFL. So people are innovating out there. No doubt. Our final topic here before we get to John Nash, topic number three.

He's here. He's here. Yeah, we're going to get to him very quickly. The 2023 International Boxing Hall of Fame class was announced on Thursday. The ceremony will be June 6th through 9th in Canastota, New York, celebrating the 35th anniversary. So look, there was some controversy coming in, not controversy, but some talk where the pandemic classes, which all went in in the same year in 2022, three classes in one were like ridiculously star studded. And it was like Roy Jones and Floyd and Klitschko and Andre Ward. And it was like, Oh my God, this year they were like, are,

is there any big names left? They did find a few. It's a smaller class this year from star value. We're going to get the hit man, Ricky Hatton headlining the class, which also includes Michael Moore, the first Southpaw heavyweight champion in history, a former low division,

Puerto Rican legend, the iron boy, Yvonne Calderon, the late action hero, Diego Chico Corrales, which posthumously, of course, and that's an interesting, now he'll join Arturo Gatti in there as sort of, you know, action heroes that made good now as Hall of Famers. And a couple other fun names, including Luke, the great, the great longtime press man, Fred Sternberg, who's Fred Sternberg,

who's done PR for top rank, everybody. I mean, everybody across a memorable, long career still going at it. Was so happy to see him get in in the non-participant category. Journalist Wallace Matthews, the late Showtime broadcaster Nick Charles. And then, Luke, legendary heavyweight Luis Angel Firpo is going to get in about seven decades later. I don't know if you have much reaction there, Luke, but that's the news that fit. Glad to see Chico Corrales

get in. I'll say that for sure. Yes, he died, of course, in 2005 in that motorcycle. It's 2007, excuse me, two years after the great fight, the first one with Jose Luis Castillo. That's your topics. Let's get into our special guest of the week. Returning for a second time in a very short turnaround.

Why? Because Bloody Elbows, John S. Nash, gets inside on you. If you know what I'm talking about. If there's details to be had, this man will dig through your garbage and find them. John, always, always a pleasure to talk to you, whether I'm telling you off in the DMs or talking to you on this show. But Luke teased it. You have so much information from this UFC antitrust lawsuit.

We've talked to you about the fallout from it. You're back on. Is this the most exciting time in your career in a while, John? No, this is the worst time. There's actual work to be done. I mean i mean who wants to cover this stuff not me that's for sure uh for someone who doesn't want to cover it you do but you you do it a lot but it's because when they ask someone to step forward everybody else stepped back and i was just left there that's yeah that's true credentials next time john i don't know what

the you know it's how it works but we were talking about this before the show like the amount of information over the course of time that we have learned about the industry that we were just debating for years on end is astonishing it's astonishing like without this we would know we would have such a limited understanding i mean i guess if they went public obviously we'd get some information from that end of things but can you just speak to how transformative this lawsuit has been in understanding how the mma and ufc business work well before people have to go back if you've been following this industry this business for let's say 10 years or so if you're old timers like us, you'll remember a period back after tough when they got really popular up until the sale and the stuff started

slipped coming out after the sale in 2016. There was a period where people knew nothing about the finances. We didn't know how much money that we didn't know what the revenue base. We had a couple of years, maybe what the revenue was for the promotion of the UFC. We didn't know what their, uh, what their profits were. We didn't know what the fighters were making. We had estimates and some of the estimates and some of the hints and stuff we had were pretty accurate, but no one knew for sure. And since then, and then you had stories, you know, no one knew what the negotiating, we had stories of how Joe Silva and them operated,

but they were just stories. And since then, you know, we've learned what the fighter wage share is. We've learned what the, we've got revenue for every year. We got fighter pay, aggregate fighter pay for every year, the total amount they're paying. We now know exactly what they're paying the owners and distributions. So all that information we, we have, but it's kind of amusing. The people that used to say like, you, you don't know how much they put back in the sport. You don't know about the other expenses. As soon as we learn that the, moves again like, well, good. They deserve it.

They deserve all the money. Yes. It doesn't really change anything. The conversation has shifted. I guess we should have seen this coming. Honestly, we really should have. It's a shame on us for not seeing it coming. It has gone exactly as you described, where things that we ambiguously were debating at times we now have

concrete information for and so it's gone from oh there's no way they do that to well even if they do do it it's a good thing that's now the conversation oh yeah well i think part part of it is uh it's because ufc has been this this monster force in the the business space for so long people accept it as the sport being the ufc now if we went back in 2006 if the three of us went and showed fans in 2006 the year that the ufc was taken off and ken shamrock was fighting tito ortiz twice that tito ortiz was fighting forrestrest Griffin, that Chuck Liddell was fighting Randy Couture, then fighting Tito Ortiz, when Hoyce and Matt Hughes, you know, all these major fights that kept elevating the buys and the success, the promotion, every fight more and more. If we

went back then and showed all the fans and said, listen, the fighters are getting less than 20% of the revenue we have. Here's the exact amount. They're getting about 30 million of the 180 million the UFC is making this year, 16%. And the owners are going to pay themselves 60 million in the distributions this year. I think fans would have freaked out back then because they would have viewed it as, wait, these guys are just as important to the success. These are the guys we're tuning in. That's why people are coming back to the UFC because Hoyce Gracie's there. We're coming back to see Tito and Ken.

You go ahead where we are now. People are coming back to the UFC because Hoyce Gracie's there. We're coming back to see Tito and Ken. You go ahead where we are now. We just assume because it's been the UFC for 15 years now, I guess, or more than 18 years now since the tough boom, we just assume that the UFC is the product that everybody's tuning in for because for 18 years, that's what we've been doing. Yeah, that's what we've been doing. That's what we've been told. Yeah, that's what we've been doing. That's what we've been told to do. That's what we've done.

That's all that. And then some. I want to ask you kind of to stay on this script here, more of a macro question before we get into the latest results that you've broken down and some really interesting stuff. But it's about, like, I wonder the totality of this reveal, the other reveal, whatever's going to get revealed in court over the next year as hopefully this trial starts in the spring and we get some real resolution.

Will it change the narrative at all? Because the narrative is still that this sport was dying. And so was this brand and these brave boxing fan heroes from a casino chain and their smart talking friend from the East coast came in there and bought it for 2 million and put all of their own money in there. And we're willing to watch it go to the verge of bankruptcy so many times, but kept going back to the well, because they believed and they put more money in and as if they're like these heroes. But I know some of the stuff we're going to talk about right now. I know some of the stuff we talked about the last year on. I know a lot of these new narratives about fighter pay and all that. Do you think a lot is going to change at how we look at, talk about, and think about the UFC as a result of all of this coming to light? I mean, well, somewhat.

You see some fans reacting to that. NPR had a story, and there were some fans going to the PFL event just because they couldn't stand Dana White. So it has some impact, which is kind of, but they didn't know any of the fighters on the card, which is also kind of hilarious. But so it has some impact, but really, I mean, the UFC deserves credit. They did kind of, you know, the, the SEG was in trouble. They bought it for 2 million. They put 36 million into the promotion. Now, some of that money, we're looking at the finances. We know it was, they flew around on private jets a lot. So they were spending a lot of money on the private jets even back then. That another more frugal promotion probably wouldn't have done that, but they still did a lot to try to build up the sport. It took off. So they deserve

a lot of success and having the confidence to keep putting money into the UFC until it took off. I think the, the story though, is at that point, like a lot of businesses, and this is so common across all industries. This is not like the UFC is uniquely bad. This is what every industry tries to do.

As soon as they started seeing that success take off, they tried to put moats around the industry, the, what they'd built to make sure that no one else could compete and follow suit because that guaranteed these massive profits going forward. So I don't want to take away what they did, let's say before, but I do think it's the, I guess the narrative should be kind of tempered with the idea that yes, they did all this stuff to build the sport, but then after it found success and they got their money back plus some, they made sure that

they could continue the faucet pouring towards them. I i got one i gotta sneak in bc real quickly before we start getting to the details which i do want to do i would love to get your reaction to this like world that dana white has created for himself where he can do like a podcast circuit and then media scrums and there's never a question about any of this information when you see these like like important revelations you've made essentially go untouched, I wonder what your reaction is. Well, I'm not surprised. They've been building this for years.

Back to the Josh Gross era where they were basically, I think Josh even commented once that their idea was that the media is dependent on, they built the industry, the media is dependent on them, and so the media should just be there to help them sell pay-per-views and events. So they've, they've now always been their goal to build an ecosystem. They, I think they even advertise in some of the lending stuff about how they have their, you know, they have their own website that distributes the news. So this is something they've always been striving for and they,

now they've really succeeded in doing it more so I think the last few years than ever before. What's crazy is the last time you were on, I asked you a question about whether like, I don't know enough about business law, business ethics, all these great questions that usually show up on Billy Madison as the final question of the academic decathlon. But I will say this, John,

the idea that people go, well, Hey dude, that's business, man. Business is cutthroat. What makes this revelation of UFC stats in this cry about, you know, oh, the poor, the fighters, although they, you know, because because the the UFC Dana psycho fans are so intense in response to the few journalists that do cover this on a regular basis that I see a lot of those knee-jerk reactions like we're talking about of, well, okay, that's great, but go see Pepsi.

Go see every other company. So I want to ask you a second time now that you know even more about how the UFC really does operate behind the scenes. Are we being a little bit too soft soy boy here and maybe playing up too much the fighters needs and wants? Or does the idea of handsomely paying yourself as owners as the thing continues to grow while I don't know, literally lobbying against your own employees or contract employees potential right to ever lobby together? Is that normal in cutthroat business john well because i just don't feel like it is no it is normal i mean businesses try to maximize their profit you watch

any business how horrible they are how you know we works and stuff around the cusp of fraud to to build inflate their asset price so businesses their goal is to maximize profit, minimize costs. The UFC technically, you know, this case will decide if they violated the law. I think it's a given that they have monopsony power, that they have market power, that they built this enterprise that can dictate the prices because they have such power in the industry. That by itself is not illegal. That's going to be decided in the court. Did they violate the Sherman Act? Did they intentionally go out of their way to attain that monopsony power,

and did they abuse it? That's the thing for the court, but I think the idea that they have monopsony power, that's inarguable. They have monopsony power. You can just see at the margins, you can see the amount of revenue, the amount of the market they own. Did the UFC abuse it? I guess the other question is, well, there's nothing wrong with owners trying to make as much money as possible, but if they had, if they attained monopsony power, and then that monopsony power is the only reason they attained this money, that even if, even if they, we found they attained the monopsony power legally, there's something wrong with that. and that's something you'd want to see regulated because i again i went back 2006 as an example but think as a fan did you i get here's

a question if you if you're fans of the ufc and you think the ufc has done everything i will let you have a ufc event and you can have any fighter that's not ranked in the top 15 on that ufc event just grab all the fighters you want that's on the roster right now not ranked in the top 15 on that UFC event. Just grab all the fighters you want that's on the roster right now, not ranked in the top 15, put a UFC event and just give me two, three nights where I can put on Francis Ngannou for John Jones, uh, you know, and pick a couple other fights I want to do. Nate Diaz of Conor McGregor. And let's compare to see who does better. And I'm guessing that my event would, wouldn't have the UFC brand would sell more.

Now that would lead to the, I guess I would lead to the assumption, the conclusion that the fighters, those fighters were drawing more than the brand. And so because of that, those fighters deserve a better cut of what the revenue is coming in. All right, let's get to some of the nuts and bolts here. And I want to start with the more recent of the two. We don't, we don't have time or the ability to go through every single piece of thing cited here but let's talk about the article this is from bloody elbow.com quote emails and

texts reveal ufc negotiation tactics daniel white celebrating cutthroat and nasty moves i realized that anton tabuena wrote this article but i wanted to give a hat tip to anton he did all this he i just gave him the stuff i downloaded and he went through all this. And some of this actually came out earlier, you know, has been released. Didn't make his biggest reaction. But now we got the full unsealed, like the chains of the email. So you get better context of what they were saying. Right.

So here's what I want to get to. There's a conversation around what they're going to do with Nate Diaz and a title shot. There's a conversation with a bunch of different directions with Nate Diaz and a title shot there's a conversation with a bunch of different directions with John Fitch and Joe Silva and Augustus in rematch for John Jones tell me something from this this trove of documents and that was released whether it's the Diaz story or something else that paints a picture because I think my read on this and if it's wrong by all means tell me is these things that have been released kind of are I won't say explicit I don't know if that's quite the right

word but you're like you can you can see them admitting to making life extraordinarily difficult for Nate Diaz for business revenge essentially and exerting control it seems it seems quite blatant to Walk me through an example and if you agree with that assessment. Well, I mean, technically nothing in those emails is illegal. You know what I mean? You could say, a lot of people could argue like, oh, I see nothing wrong with those emails. And I guess technically you're right. The problem is if you are abusing monopsony power, if you're breaking the law with that, certain things that are legal for

other businesses to do are no longer legal for you to do so in other words if i have monopsony power and i can dictate the price i can't use my control of the market then to say it's basically say oh it's take it or leave it and because that's an example of me abusing my market power because i'm not giving a chance to this fighter to negotiate i'm not giving i'm also restricting them from entering the market which would be monopsony power. If I have the monopsony power and I don't want certain assets on the market for other promotions to acquire them, as you see with the Gilbert Melendez one, that would be an example of me abusing that because I'm trying to retain that monopsony power.

So things like that where another promotion or one of the weaker promotions could probably do the same things and it wouldn't raise an eyebrow in the court. This is an example for this case of them using, trying to attain or abuse the power that they're being accused of. And so that's what makes them noteworthy. I do want to point out too, kind of ministering on the Nate Diaz one, and we talk about the power of, which is not really to do with this antitrust case, but we talk about the Ali Act and the ownership of titles. You notice that they hold out the title as one of the things that he needs to reset. If he wants that title shot, he has to sign that contract. Right. And that's, that shows the difference in boxing because in boxing,

the fighter owns like his mandatory challenge, his, uh, his, his ranking. So he wouldn't have to sign with the promoter and give up multiple fights. If he was a mandatory, if he's the next in line, he doesn't have to sign with the promoter and give up multiple fights. If he was a mandatory, if he's the next in line, he doesn't have to do that. And so here they're holding it out and say, you want to fight for the title. You have to sign the six fight contract. And that's multiple contracts were in boxing.

You would say, no, I'm the mandatory. Let's go to Perspit. If we can't come to a deal. I want to, I want real quick. If you can just comment. And pair with that real quickly Luke and just say is that a similar situation that this story also produced the idea of John Jones after having defeated Gustafson was offered a rematch the promotion and according to these leaked emails make it seem known that they knew he was going to turn it down they offered to it John turned it down not wanting it as his next fight and then automatically the penalty is that he gets his contract extended um should that be legal is that legal is that in line with what you're well i guess it's it's a it's technically legal but

when you have market monopsy power and you're doing that to hold people in your under contract it doesn't become i mean look it look at boxing, all these provisions often exist in boxing, but in boxing, we don't see the promoters act that way. Why? Because they need the boxers. They got to keep them happy. They got to get them to fight. Cause that's how they get their money. UFC, they have everybody. They don't really, even John Jones, they don't need John Jones to fight. They have tons of money coming in anyways. They're a repeat player. They can freeze those stars out as long as it takes to then get a better deal, the deal they want within line with their budget. Okay.

I wanted to comment on a couple of things here, some quotes from the documents. So there's one that's interesting. It's where, quote, UFC used their controversial contract clauses to prevent Gilbert Melendez from moving to Bellator. Text messages obtained from the lawsuit show Dana White congratulating Lorenzo Fertitta for a, quote, fucking cutthroat nasty business. The spelling is not going to be fully accurate. And then he continues, quote, this is Dana to Lorenzo. Bro, you know I love you to fucking death as it is.

But what you pulled off this week with Melendez and the other dude I'm assuming it's Bjorn Rebny is fucking bad the story claims the other dude is Eddie Alvarez so this is right around like when Alvarez is still in Bellator or after I'm not sure of the timing of the text I have to pull it up but

fucking cutthroat nasty business like you see in the movies Dana wrote in the text and then Lorenzo writes back we got to keep taking these fuckers oxygen until they tap out. We have sacrificed too much to let anyone get traction now. And then lastly, But what these would illustrate, I think, right, is that they're using monopsony power to absolutely destroy the market for any other firm to even be in that place. Yeah. If you use boxing as an example, because boxing has peer promotions, if Matchroom did that against PBC or Top Rank, it would be like, well, that's kind of a jerk move, right? But it's not illegal because they have just as much of the market space, right? They have just as much of the market. For the UFC to do that, though, that owns 90%

of the market and they're trying to make sure the other promotion doesn't even get any more grip on it, that would be an example of them abusing that monopsony power, their ability or restricting access to the assets to let people grow in the market. Oh, it's interesting, too, that section came out earlier. That was released a while ago, so it made a little bit of a dent, but it's kind of interesting how much more, I guess, how much more newsworthy these text messages are now. But what's interesting is there's more context. Later, they explained, too, is Gilbert Melendez, the UFC actually did not match the Bellator offer to Gilbert Melendez. And they were worried that fighters would think that they could, by going test in the

market, that they could actually win one over them by doing so. Uh, but they didn't want, they also didn't want to bring up what Eddie, you know, Gilbert Melendez's actual contract was but supposedly because the ufc offers pay-per-views they use that example of them offering a better deal under the the wording of the matching clause i guess that we offered a better deal and they got to keep gilbert melendez because of that yeah my understanding is with those provisions they don't they you have to try like oh i have a deal on television i have a deal for a purse this way i have a deal for some kind of sponsorship within the promotion.

Let's say they do that. They have to match that as identically as they can. But if they can offer commensurate value or greater vis-a-vis, in this particular case, pay-per-view, then that works as a way of matching ultimately. And that was a change in the wording back, and I believe it was around the Eddie Alvarez one, because they were worried that Bellator could offer deals and just throw in pay-per-views in amounts that they couldn't match. You know, they were like, well, they're not even going to do that. It just looks on papers. Then they started adding, you know, lines in the contract that said that, you know, we're going to look at the monetary value of this offer.

We just have to match the monetary value or something like that. Okay. One more on this, and then i want to talk about how much the ufc paid themselves last one quote that anton writes in an email with joe silva vladimir matt ushenko the janitor great nickname by the way uh his rep had asked if there are other options aside from fighting john jones by the way john jones beat the living shit out of matt ushenko when they did fight the ufc matchmaker then responded this is jo Silva, quote, you don't really get multiple choices, end quote, and threatened to extend Matt Yushchenko's contract,

leave him on the sidelines, end quote, wait until another show to fight, end quote, if he didn't accept. So this is a clear example of a tolling provision, adding time on the contract as retribution for not accepting the fight. Yeah, exactly. And the threat that he would sit out if he didn't accept it,

that he would, as a penalty. Yeah, but the two things, one is because, and I don't know if you saw, Francis Ngannou was on an interview with Shannon Sharp, and he talked about this, how you're desperate for money as a fighter because you wait so long to your next fight. So the janitor probably needs money. He needs a fight.

They offer him John Jones. It's a terrible fight for him, right? So he says, no, we'd like to turn it down. A good manager does his job. So we're saying the punishment is we're going to sit you out for six months. We're going to sit you out for a while, maybe longer, not give you a fight. So you're not going to get the money you need. And on top of that, we're going to extend the contract six months. So there's no out. It's going to continue on as long as we want so there's no and there's no promise too they won't offer him another terrible fight that to me is the difference between boxing and mma and i don't mean that from a sense to say that boxing is safe or clean or better or anything like that like boxing is a shithole of ridiculousness it's the wild wild, wild west. It's part of the charm.

It's part of the lure, while it also inevitably becomes the thing that drives away so many, right? You can only see so many bad decisions or your favorite fight not happening, what have you. But the difference is always fundamentally when comparing the two and people still do, the success of the two, that boxing has multiple promoters rather than in this case when we talk about ufc and fighter pay we're talking about one so the idea of like cross promotion and stuff like that comes in where it's just not an apples to apples comparison but when you're bringing up things john like how ufc is using the title or the prospect of fighting for the title as threats to put people in line where they want to be and they're fighting under the hood of a company that's a monopsony monopsony malopasy all the probably right uh so that's closing doors

you you can't you're you can't just like oh well i'll just fight out to my last two fights to become a free agent because if they purposely send you a fight that they know you're going to shoot down because it's too tough or low money they're just going to extend or sit you out anyway that i don't think there's a comparison at all yes boxing's got this long history and luckily you don't see the same control in the 70s and 80s that promoters like don king and bob arum had and you know how many fighters have sued Don King after leaving him. That's always been a dirty pool, but it's cleaned up a lot in some key areas. And now we're finding out these fighters in the UFC are not only not benefiting from the fact that at least in boxing, when you get to the top, the pay scale is so life-changing and ridiculous, but man, they've got everything turned against them at every turn.

So it's no wonder they've never unionized or didn't smarten up or didn't, you know, go after the right management. I mean, it doesn't just seem that the more you dig into this, John, the more from day one, these fighters never had a chance. And while yes, we can sit here and ostensibly salute UFC for getting the business to this point, the more I'm finding out about how they did it, I'm waiting for the next skeleton to fall out of the closet, that we haven't even thought about is there more is there like like

that's why i started off this this conversation by bringing up the whole storyline of the ufc and the romance and is that getting is that balloon getting poked and popped because it's starting to feel the more we dig in here this has been fucking grimy and dirty from the very beginning no surprise in combat sports but these fighters don't even have a chance john of doing exactly what francis did which was shushing they don't even have a chance to do that anymore like and now they never did so like is that just again that's just business bc shut the hell up and man up or no this is fucking ridiculous this comes from a boxing guy this is

ridiculous john well as a boxing guy as a fellow first of all i agree boxing and you know i defend boxing on the the aspect that the the top guys the guys that generate ticket sales are much better off in boxing in a competitive market than they are in mma but boxing has tons every boxing fan knows boxing has tons of problems that's the, like you said, the charm of boxing. I think what's recognizable as a boxing fan, if you go back long enough, you see that this happened in boxing several times before. There was the International Boxing Club of New York. They monopolized the sport.

Don King did. Basically, he was accused of monopolizing the heavyweight division. And Bob Arum and some of the lower divisions where you had to go to them and they controlled the path to the title. And that's kind of what the UFC is because they looked at the market. There was no regulation MMA. They get to make their own. They get to follow a pro wrestling model where they get to make their own titles and they own the titles and operate as a sanctioning organization.

In fact, I will make the argument that the major problem with boxing now is not with the promoters and not with the fighters because they're all greedy. That's what they're supposed to be. It's with the sanctioning organizations in boxing. They are not doing what they're supposed to do, which is enforcing their own guidelines and making sure people defend and the proper guys challenge for the titles to make sure the best guys fight for them. That's the one weak link in boxing. But everything else is driving up salaries for the guys fighting for them. That's the one weak link in boxing. But everything else is driving up salaries for the guys fighting for them. In MMA, the promoter has that power where they get to dictate the terms. And because everybody wants to be a champion, that's what you're getting into the sport for,

is basically prove you're the best. On top of that, if you want to make money, getting to the championship is where the money, that unlocks the secret to making money. They own the, they have the keys to that, to that, that's that door. And if you can't meet their demands, you don't get access to it. So, yeah,

I don't, this is something, I mean, I probably I'm a broken record on this. I've been broken record for over a decade, but that's the secret of how the UFC has monopoly power. And that is because they control the titles. Okay.

Let's advance this conversation if we can to your report that came out december 7th quote this is the title of it on bloodyelbow.com lawsuit reveals how ufc owners took out hundreds of millions every year to pay themselves that's just the setup here's my question and again i know there's a lot of credentials, masters from this. He's got every certification in accounting, done tons of cases. So I don't want to repeat all of his certifications or his credits because I don't know them all. But he's extremely well credentialed. And he did a report.

What he did is he took all the financial information that the UFC supplied in Discovery. So this, we're talking about their, like their tax filings, the SEC file, anything they had to file publicly, and also their internal documents on fighter pay, internal documents on their finances. And he went through all of them and he compiled through all those, what the, what the cost was for the fight. First of all, what the UFC made every year, what their earnings were every year, total earnings,

what they paid out to the fighters, not their earnings were every year, total earnings, what they paid out to the fighters, not just in the bout compensation, but also identity class compensation also. And for bout that also the secret underground backdoor payments for Campbell, Mr. Campbell there. And then on top of it, he also did stuff, the benefits like the healthcare, the medical insurance, things like that. So that's for the fighters.

And then for the, the owners, he went through and how much they distributed out to the owners every year. And on top of the ownership distribution, he went through how much they, they use the private jets for personal use, how much they, they paid themselves, the Fertitta's paid themselves a management fee, things like that. So he covered just a, just a wealth of information in those documents. All right. Ultimately, he reaches this conclusion. Tell me how he arrives at it. This is what Davis wrote in his report. Quote, from 2005 to 2016 and at all times during the class period,

this is the period of the lawsuit itself. Zufa was a profitable company with favorable operating margins and a substantial ability to produce cash. Its operational success made it an attractive target for both lending and investing communities. But then he says, quote, the original equity holders consistently adopted a very aggressive dividend policy, which effectively swept the company's cash flow and in some instances, its net loan proceeds to them. The stark contrast between the value original equity holders elected to confer to themselves and the total compensation paid to fighters establishes that Zufa had the capacity to pay its fighters substantially more than the actual amounts paid. It sounds relatively

straightforward. Can you unpack that for us well what he's not making an argument this is not evidence presented here that the ufc abused the violated the sherman act that they they abused their monopsony power so that's not what this what this document proves shows is basically the ufc made so much money during that period and paid their owners so much money there they could have paid the fighters a lot, lot more. So when people argue, I guess the defendants are going to argue, we could not pay the fighters as much as the plaintiffs are asking for. They're going to say, well, here's the proof.

Here's the evidence that you actually had the money there to pay the fighters a lot, lot more. And also goes to a lot of the fans that for years have said, oh, they, you know, the UFC can't pay as much as people say they should because the UFC to go broke go broke no here's how much the owners made so if you take the money the owners were getting and gave it to the fighters the fighters would have made a lot lot more all right but i guess the follow-up there is tell us how much they paid themselves and i guess this is the question i would have what automatically makes it kind of red flag territory because at some point

someone's going to say well they, they deserve to be rich, which I think most of us would agree with. At what point did we tip over from them making themselves rich to this is more egregious? Well, I mean, the first thing you'd have to ask yourself is why people are tuning into the UFC. Why am I buying a pay-per-view? If you're buying a pay-per-view just because it's the Octagon and Bruce

Buffer's announcing the fighters and Joe Rogan's there and Dana White, then that's one thing they deserve all the money they could. But if that's the case, then they wouldn't have to have these contracts to hold the fighters and wouldn't need specific fighters. Right? So, but that's one argument. If the argument is you're tuning in for the fighters, well, then the question is why are they getting such a small share of the revenue? And that's where I think this comes in because what the owners made is they got something like the Fertittas and Dana White together got paid in

distributions $1.2 billion from the company. Now, $320 million of that came from loans they took out. Remember the big debt they carried for years? That debt was used basically just to pay the owners distributions. So they took more debt to pay themselves more. So that money that could have been used to the fighters was paid to them. And remember, too, this does not include that number I just said, that $1.2 billion from 2005 to 2016. That does include the, I think it's the, I can't remember, like $10 million to like 20 million at the

10 to 20 million that the Fertittas paid themselves in management fees. Doesn't include the amount of times they, the private jets they were using, that they were using way above the costs that Goldman Sachs said they should for the business. So they're using it for private or other businesses. Doesn't include their salaries, doesn't include all this other benefits they get. That's just what they got from distributions. And so they were just getting just a ton of money. Now they deserve money. They put money in the UFC,

but after 2006, they had made their money back. And then some, I guess the question is at what point does the scales tip where instead of them getting all the rev, all the money, it goes, it starts tipping back to the fighters.

And so to me, that's my question. So I would think after a while, it's nice for them to make money, but do they need to make all the money still 15 years later? Well, I think that's why I have to think of this separately. When I think of this whole thing, it goes down to the fighters' care or lack thereof and the money they were deserving, but that's not necessarily like the, the, the crux of why they're

on trial, right? They're on trial to find out if this was a monopoly. So I guess I understand what the fallout could be in a positive way for the sport if the plaintiffs win. And that would be, you know, any number of like future limitations that opens up the free agent market shortens the contracts and all of that but what are the potential penalties or not that the ufc could face of this as a fallout separate from that is there fine like is there fines that could happen do you think there's enough evidence out there from what we're talking about in the show that it's a slam dunk that they're going to lose? How do you sort of handicap this from a distance at what's at stake for the UFC?

Well, you never know what's going to happen in trials. We're going to look at the antitrust trial first. You never know what's going to happen. It's up to a jury, right? The jury is going to decide. Now, based on the reaction that fans have when you put those tweets and texts up, right, and then emails. They get very passionate. So I would be nervous having a jury look at that because a jury might say, man, this is really underhanded the way you guys did to these fighters. And here's the evidence. I don't think the jury, they're not really going

to fully understand the aggression models and math. They're just going to understand if it shows that they think the fighters didn't get paid enough or not. So I think that's risky. So the UFC could be facing, as we've talked many times before, they could be facing up to a billion and a half dollars in damages for that period, which could be trebled if they lose. So that's a massive amount of money. That's a risk. And then there's injunctive relief eventually, which is going to be years down the road.

Well, if the plaintiffs won this case, there would be injunctive relief for this class of fighters, but that wouldn't really impact the industry because almost all these fighters are retired now. But in the future, you'd have several years down the road. We'd be looking at injunctive relief where the court could order. They have a limited contracts. But outside of this trial, I mean, I guess the only possible penalty for the UFC is you could see some states, some athletic commissions looking into some of their behavior,

but it'd be minor. They're only minor things they could look into. Most states commissions are not going to check them because they're dependent on the UFC showing up to get the tax base. So they're, you know, they're captured regulatory bodies. So I doubt they're going to do anything there. It could, maybe it would spur something to happen with the Congress. Maybe it would spur a fighter to challenge their contracts, a fighter that has standing. Cause that's one of the problems. A lot of people read their UFC contracts. They said, well, that doesn't really, I don't think that would hold up, but only if you're a fighter that has standing. In other words, you're impacted by that specific provision.

Are you going to be able to challenge it? So like the champion's clause, right? You can't challenge the champion clause until you're impacted by the champion clause, and that doesn't come up very often. So you would maybe that you've seen some fighters challenge it, but I don't know. I think it's, I could see some changes

where fighters start getting more proactive because of a victory in this, but we're still, it's, uh, I could see some changes where fighters start getting more proactive because of a victory in this, but we're still, still a ways off. We have a trial in April. Then there's going to be several months. Let's say the, and let's say the plaintiffs could lose that. And then they would, they would appeal. But if the defendants lose it, there's still several more months to go be paper, all this weird stuff they got to do to settle damages.

Then this starts the appeal process so it'd probably be the end of 2025 sometime in there before if they got rejected by the the pill process totally played out that we'd finally get some sort of closure on the case what if i told you john yeah all right sounds like an intro to a great 30 for 30. i'm waiting to see this this pitch to go on a swinging mission together. Let's go. Wow. Jesus. All right. We got to send

Nash some of our beat-off cream. Nash, you know we're selling Jerkins now. I wanted you to know that. That's a real thing. That's a real thing. I can hang up now if that's all right. I forgot my question too and it was really good

hey John plug your stuff where can folks find it where can they get all your stuff no I did have it but go ahead you think about it you can find me on whatever the x twitter whatever the hell it's called now for now I don't know how much longer that site's gonna hold up but at hang out the face

I publish an article every couple times a month on Bloody Elbow. They're the only site that'll carry my stuff. I work often with Anton Tabueno, Steffi Hayes, all the crew over there. And then I have a podcast, the HeyNotTheFace podcast with Steffi, with Stephanie, which we do twice a month as well. And then a month later later i post on my own

youtube channel so and then look out for a book next year that whoa yeah so it's a book of erotic literature yeah no this is only kind that's bc's only kind is this book going to be about fighter pay well so yeah it's basically about the history of the UFC's financial history, the UFC, me and Jacob Debitz, a former showrunner. Oh, the Australian. I love him. Yeah, that Aussie bastard. He's doing it with me. What if I told you, John, and I appreciate you plugging all your stuff.

We love having you on the show. The fans dig you, too. What if I told you that, now, true or false, the Fertittas are also partners in PowerSlam, right? That's the truth. Yes, that is true. What if I told you that they created this company, not necessarily to launder money

or have an outlet to fill a lot of paper bags for the Nelks. What if they did this company, knowing how big this stupid sport is in other countries, like Luke's home country of India, just to try to raise ridiculous capital to offset the financial losses that may come with either losing this lawsuit or defending it. Well, I don't think the Fertittas would do that because they have no stake in this lawsuit. They sold the liability to Endeavor. So Endeavor is the one that holds the liability, not the Fertittas. And on top of that,

Endeavor now has dropped this company, UFC, into TKO. So the TKO shareholders hold the liability, not the Fertittas. And on top of that, Endeavor now has dropped this company, UFC, into TKO. So the TKO shareholders hold the liability of what happens with them. Okay, so that's key to note. So could we, in theory, find anything in these Lorenzo or Frank Fertitta emails if more comes out? And short of them admitting to murder, it's not going to matter, right?

Yeah, it's not going to matter at all for the Fertittas. They got their 100 meter yachts sailing around the ocean. They made off, so it's not going to matter at all for the potatoes. They got their a hundred meter yachts sailing around the ocean. They, they made off. So they're not going to have to pay anything back. It's all the damages will be, uh,

totally born by the, the company that owns UFC now TKO, which is a gone public, which means the public, it matters how much of the shares they sell. The public might end up holding all the, most of the bag when it's all said and done. It's always how it ends up. That's always it freaking ends up all right john i'll have to save

my other questions for next time if you're willing to recur with us but it's fine i don't know i'm starting to second guess the whole visit here right now i gotta be honest with the elbows john you're right to do that yeah yeah i just i just want to i just want to say one thing too is people getting i i what's weird is that i think there's two camps in the suit say one thing too people get what's weird is that I think there's two camps in the suit one is that people think it's a nothing burger and it has the potential to be at the far end extreme

be a massive change in the sport and the other side is people think it's a slam dunk and like I said before we have no clue of the jury so that's what makes this fascinating come april we are going to be on pins and needles that's it that's all there it is john nash we'll be talking to you along this incredible journey thank you for joining us we'll check out your continued work at bloody elbow tell all the folks there we said what's up motherfuckers

no there he is bye john luke you know i'm a big jsn fan you know what i'm saying uh i don't know what you're saying all right well luke i do know what i'm saying and that's how difficult it can be at times to keep my personal workouts fresh and effective and when it's not fresh and effective luke you you have an inherent problem. You can't build consistency and you can't build gains. And at our age, Luke, if you get a bout of ambition, you better have a knowledge and a plan of attack ready to turn that around because it could be turning your life around. You need FitBot. Yeah. FitBot is here to help you out, guys. Again, we've talked about it ad nauseum, but it doesn't get any less true. You need a plan. You need FitBod. Yeah, FitBod is here to help you out, guys. Again, we've talked about it ad nauseum, but it doesn't get any less true.

You need a plan. You need a plan. You need a plan that understands you, where you're at, where you're going, what you have, what you want to do, how it's all going to work, and then it maps it out for you. All you have to do is take each step, as my daughter loudly bangs on my door like a barbarian at the gate. Nevertheless, BC, FitBod can get that done for you.

It can understand and adapt to what weights you have or not, whether you're at the gym, whether you're not, whether you're traveling, whether you're not, what your weight is, what you want to do, everything. And so when you show up to the gym or whatever you're going to do that day, it's already planned, Bubba. All you got to do is just make the walk.

Look, the computers are taking everything from us, Luke. We might as well use them right in the computer access of the FitBod app gives you something that can intelligently vary your intensity of your workout, the volume and app that can track your muscle fatigue and app that can begin in the real time to create recovery schemes for you based upon your workout, the intensity, and what you have in front of you. Heck, if you are a noob and you don't know a damn thing about working out, you can learn noob movements right away with over 1,000 exercise demonstration videos. have no excuse because FitBot does the hard work and the smart work for you to set the stage to make sure you're working out the right way and the smart way. It's just up to you to show up and put in the time. Luke, it's going to be the new year, but people don't have to wait until

January 1st to resolute. They can download the FitBot app today and get a head start on their fitness resolutions. That's right. Get 25% off your today and get a head start on their fitness resolutions. That's right. Get 25% off your subscription and get three free personalized workouts when you go to FitBot.me slash combat. 25% off free personalized workouts at FitBot.me slash combat. Combat with a K. Thank you very much. Get fit, bud. Or get bent.

Alright, Luke, we'll quickly run through these dead wrongs to close. MorningCombat at gmail.com of what we may or may not got wrong along the way. This one's called Dead Wrong. Do you guys hear my daughter screaming? Oh yeah, the toques is back hey this is mikey he says at

16 30 of episode 524 bc calls chris gutierrez el chapo yeah i already got double jeopardy for that folks after that he corrected himself but we had a bunch of people writing to say that luke is wrong in calling out bc but but because bc actually did call chris gutierrez el chop at 1630 but not chop oh and i guess i called him the other times i mean whatever you pedantic people but we give you that space to come whack us right luke okay that's what this is for is Does that make you a big shot? What are you, Daz from Hawaii? Daz, back up on that ass. Yeah, give a blast. Hey, he says Aloha donks at about 1 hour 26 of episode 523. BC refers to Ryan Garcia's performance against Oscar Duarte

as, quote, complete modge podge. Yeah, it's hodgepodge. But even that wouldn't really make sense say that it was both impressive and puzzling yes let me explain here why that makes sense ryan garcia's performance was as equally questionable as it was spectacular which is in in my house luke coming a play on words from hodgepodge which was a favorite jeopardy category for many people growing up is when my wife isn't going to cook. And there's just a bunch of odd stepchildren leftovers in the fridge,

little rice, little, you know, it's my podge night. There's like a mozzarella stick, three chicken wings. And like, you know,

I'm about to eat that right now. And that was to me, what Ryan Garcia gave us a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Some was very good. Some was concerning. And, Luke, this man also says, oh, he says the phrase for a mixed bag should have been hodgepodge. Yeah, I got that. He says maybe the phrase is different in your factory town or maybe you're trying to sound intelligent.

LT the Grammar Hammer, I'm surprised you didn't correct BC. Thanks for all the content and if this is the last of the bomb shelter orchids of combat then congrats on the awesome run from there thank you daz that's very nice i thought they were going to roast us i guess not uh let's hear from brad i think this is our final no i got a couple more good day blokes instead of taking the piss out of your host's grammar this one goes to the mk production crew i wonder what song pfl would sing with espn some douche folk rock with brian or a version of forced gender oh i know what he's talking about the headline of the video was supposed to be pfl

signs with espn and they wrote sings in the title i do remember saying that yes he says thanks for brad says thanks for the content from an average Muay Thai practitioner and above average fight enthusiast from down under. It's Brad. Good day out to you, Brad. We'll take that L. Is that a knife? Oh, this is a knife.

This is a knife. This one's from Ray. On Friday's podcast at 141, while reading a sponsored ad bc said quote while leading a sediment lifestyle yeah i did sediment is what i find at the bottom of my glass when drinking tap water in certain third world countries i think he meant sedentary i hope the sponsor of the ad refuses payment to teach bc a. Luke, what they don't understand is I know that. I'm the one who planted the joke. You know what I mean?

You know? Like, yeah. So am I dead wrong? You're like that Dana White quote. Remember when Aaron Bronstetter was like, you know, what's your favorite show during the pandemic? What's your favorite blah? He's like, what's your favorite book?

And Dana's like, I don't like books. I don't read.'m like i'm like whoa that's a bold claim that's the bc plan we got one more from austin here uh good afternoon to the best damn combat show period i hate sending these but this one i know luke will appreciate on december 1st at around 750 luke was telling brian about grinding and then mentioned clips from Virginia Beach. That's dead wrong, Luke. They are from Newport News, Virginia. I happen to know this for sure because I also lived in Virginia for a short time.

Charlottesville, in fact, before the Nazis breached UVA. Would never have dead wrong something something so insignificant but push a t is one of my favorite ever gangster hustler and okay so but here's the deal so i think he's right clips are from newport news by the way i was for i mean he was at charlottesville he's on the other side of virginia i was at least in the tidewater region um but uh pharrell who produced much of that album including the big hits is from virginia beach um star trek rider those dogs they are from virginia beach missy elliott i believe as well maybe you're like a little bit wrong but kind of right yeah i guess i'm i'm i yeah clips are not expressly from virginia beach that's true

but like that whole that like missy elliott timberland all those guys are from newport news to virginia beach in that general area you know yeah damn right you know hampton all right luke dude i went to an outcast concert at the hampton coliseum uh and we tailgated in the parking lot, and we were the only people doing that, which I found very surprising. I found very surprising. We're, yeah. Austin would go on to say, gangster hustler and nighttime still had to kiss my mother,

and then he says, so much respect to the two of you for all your hard work. MK fan forever. It's Austin. Thank you, brother. Appreciate that. You want to get us, go to morningcombat at gmail.com. You fan forever. It's awesome. Thank you, brother. Appreciate that. You want to get us, go to morningcombat at gmail.com.

You can try to dead wrong us. Luke, I don't suppose you have time for a couple extra fans from Wednesday. You got to get to your family and stuff, right? Yeah, let's bump them because my daughter is banging on the door and crying. I would like to see what that's all about. I guarantee you we'd play them today. We didn't. You got to tune in next wednesday for it but we want to thank

mikey more mall behind the scenes cbs sports the great john s nash of bloody elbow luke i really enjoyed that thank you for using the power and strength of your rolodex to secure such an incredible friday guest you're welcome peasant you're welcome it's a very large rolodex yeah oblong shape too like you're i'm gonna assume look like your piece you know i mean you know like just you know yeah it was just you know it felt weird i'd love to go spend time with my family rather than have you estimate the shape of my hog i mean what are we doing i can we please be fired now i mean betty did did they match the basement carpet hey i got a question for next time can you ask john nash longer and more meandering questions they weren't long and meandering enough this time well you know if he would have came a

half hour earlier when i was only at you know delta 7.5 look it would have been a lot easier to land that plane all right you know what i mean once you get up to about 10 here yeah all right i know i had a lot of passion and i really enjoyed and i thought let's wrap it up dude jesus christ you know i mean you could go luke i've got more land the plane land the plane all right guess what guys we're out of here