MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC Vegas 84 Picks | Fight News | Beterbiev-Smith | One Fight Night 14 | Morning Kombat Ep 536

Episode Date: January 12, 2024

On Episode 536 of Morning Kombat Luke Thomas and Brian Kick off the show with the return of Ok, Bet. New Rules, New Bets, let's see how much money the guys can make in 2024. Next up the guys break down a bunch of recent fight announcements. What are the guys thoughts on UFC 300 now that we have a few more fights added to the card. The guys close out the main topics with a preview of Artur Beterbiev vs. Callum Smith and One Fight Night 14. As Always we close out Friday's with dead wrong. (00:00:00) - Intro (00:12:00) - Ok, Bet (00:33:30) - Fight Announcements (01:09:45) - Artur Beterbiev vs. Callum Smith (01:24:00) - One Fight Night 14 (01:31:00) - 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

Introducing the new McSpicy from McDonald's. It looks like a regular chicken sandwich, but it's actually a spicy chicken sandwich. McSpicy. Consider yourself warned. Limited time only at participating McDonald's in Canada. 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, get fired up It is Friday MK is back, the UFC is back And I know you ain't got shit to do

So let's do it January 12th, 2024 morning combat in your face hole. I'm Brian Campbell, that BBC with that BDE representing the CTE. There you go. There you go. But representing the nation's capital is my partner in crime, Luke Thomas. And Luke, not only will we see the return of OK Bet today, right? But we're going to get some picks in there to get you fired up for UFC Fight Night.

It's back. We're back. Let's bang, Tui. The tour of decidedly not even mediocre good betting comes your way today with a refreshed OK Bet. We're going to see how this goes. We're going to soft launch it here today and see what the folks think. We think it's a better format. We think it's interesting, and I think you could also kind of collaborate with us. We'll see how that goes.

But, yeah, a new OK Bet headed your way. Absolutely. Let's get fired up. Absolutely, Dram. I'm going to jump. There you go. And, of course, we will pay off the 2023 OK Bet season with the BC victory in the concert. Once we get all our ducks lined up in this new year of 2024.

So stay tuned. Let's start off with this. You can like and subscribe to the video here on YouTube or if you're listening on an audio platform at home, you can follow us on the socials. Huge shout out, as always, to Mikey Moore, Myles CBS Sports on the socials huge shout out as always to mikey more miles cbs sports on the ones and twos behind us and also our fine mate merch maven look that's is that a chewbacca coffee mug excuse me here wow look at that it is we talked about this before my daughter broke the handle you see right here up here she broke the handle but it is a chewbacca coffee mug yes chewbacca would appreciate her bout it, bout it ways of just terrorizing whatever comes in her path.

But you can go to morningcombat.store right now. RJ's got some fantastic offerings from this hat I'm wearing right here to all the shirts, sweatshirts, bomber jackets that you see us typically wear. Check it out right now.

And if you want a little scratch off, how about 10% off with live 10 or code L-I-V-E 1 code live10 get after it luke uh anything else you want to announce to the people uh what else we got going on in our lives here um a lot of cooking in the lab a lot of cooking going on not much to show for it at the moment but certainly it is happening bc i will also say this man there's two things i really realized as I get older that I I hate to admit is true but it is true uh getting up early if you're trying to focus on productivity it's better I I've always been a night owl I will always be a night owl but I have to admit I just get a lot more done when I get up

early and the other part too is BC I never had great workouts in the Marine Corps when we were up at like 4 45 and then you know running by 530 that's not true but I do think is working out in the morning in general better than working out in the afternoon slash certainly the evening yes it is also true I also hate to admit that but it's true man he's like uncomfortable facts that I've resisted for 44 years starting to manifest I had to learn the hard way in the last couple of years, Luke, that I pretty much can't write anything after about 2 p.m. My mind is just gone. So if I'm going to write something, a story for work, whatever,

it's got to be in the morning after the cup of coffee. It's just the way I'm wired. I get it, Luke. But I also – go ahead. Last thing. I spoke to Dewey Cooper. Dewey Cooper, you might recall, the Black Cobra, is the striking coach of one Francis Ngannou. And I spoke to Dewey Cooper. Dewey Cooper, you might recall, the Black Cobra, is the striking coach of one Francis Ngannou,

and I spoke to him for MK. That'll be out today at 3 p.m. Eastern. You can check that out at youtube.com slash morningcombat. And, dude, I got to tell you, man, like, if I asked you, BC, how implausible is it for Francis Ngannou to knock out Anthony Joshua, you know, just the rational part of you is going to say that's pretty implausible. Well, listen to Dewey Cooper and then afterwards, tell me if you still think it's as implausible. I bet you he can move the needle, so to speak in that regard. What a, what an interesting and accomplished guy. I really am. He made me so excited for that fight.

Yeah. Today, 3 p.m. Eastern on the youtube.com slash Morning Combat. Check that out. Dewey is so charismatic, passionate. It gets you inspired. Like, Luke, we have to reset what we think we know in combat sports after Fury and Gano. It's just the truth. I don't actually know if that's an aberration in a one-night special, but I'm not discounting Gano. And obviously, Dewey Cooper isn't as well entering this AJ fight in March.

So fired up for that. Check that out. You can also watch my Teofimo Lopez Jr. interview as he gets fired up for his return February 8th Jermaine Ortiz and he had a lot of comments about Devin Haney not returning his calls and so many other spicy topics of the moment don't miss that all right I think we've got everything lined up I think we're ready to bang. Last thing on this, I do have a question for you, a boxing question for you, BC. It's not really in the rundown, but I just want to pick your brain here very quickly.

There's been a lot of tweeting going on with Jerron Ennis, Errol Spence with the eye surgery, blah, blah, blah. And yesterday, Terrence Crawford tweeted something that caught my attention. He was like, you know, I've done heard it all, and he tagged Errol Spence. But, you know, man-to-man, all in all, i'm glad to know that it's over and we can move on they're not going to rematch are they it sounds like that is done okay so i didn't see that tweet but the way that you just framed it really makes people because that was

something that has happened this week that we didn't get a chance to really break into it was the idea that errol spence as said, did have cataract surgery. That seems to delay this contractually mandated rematch that Spence activated. But initially after that injury, Bud had tweeted something to the idea that Spence is still going to be my next fight. But since then, Luke, I don't know if you saw this Teofimo versus Bud Crawford rivalry that's been ruined. I'll say this right now in general, and we've said this a million times. The young, not even the young, the American stars of the moment in boxing, dude, they want it.

They want it now. They want smoke. They want to move divisions. They want to move networks. I mean, the fact that we could really get Devin Haney versus anyone at 140 coming up, Teofimo versus, I mean, we're going to see super fights, Luke. And you add in Saudi Arabia. This is going to be a wild time for boxing right now.

So lastly, before we get started here, this is what Terrence Crawford wrote. Quote, I done heard it all now at Errol Spence Jr. It's okay, though, because all in all, I'm glad it's over and done with. I wish you well, my brother. Okay, this is good for boxing. This is very good for Spence. I didn't need to see a rematch. Still interested in Errol Spence.

Didn't need to see a rematch, and this opens up Crawford to a lot of other possibilities. Exciting, exciting. I mean, who's Crawford going to fight? You could go Tao moving up from 140, Tao Fimo Lopez. You could go Jermel Charlo for the unification at 154. You can go Tim Zoo, who now has one of those four titles. You could go Canelo Alvarez if you want.

Virgil Ortiz Jr., Boots Ennis. It's going to be fun. It's going to be a fun year, Luke. So buckle up. I'm really, really excited to get after it. All right, let's do it. Luke, I was going to say let's bang again, but I have gotten a few people DMing me going, hey, guys, some jokes, they have a shelf life.

Let's bang too. He has long perished. I don't know if I agree with that. Oh, I disagree. I don't know if I agree with that. You know what I'm saying? I'm always trying to gauge the people. Dude, our intro still does the tip to tip bit.

If there's any joke that's out of, know we've that one is it we're still running that shit so yeah dude let's bet dude let's bang tooey is so fucking hilarious and so dumb we have to find something equally hilarious and dumb to replace that and i don't know what that would be just yet well i will say one of my finest moments in journalism history was when you and i were at that international fight Week event at the UFC Media Day. And I asked Greg Hardy that same question about what I'm sorry. I asked Tui Vassa that same question about what Greg Hardy said. So, yeah, Brian Campbell from CBS here.

Question for Tui Vassa and Greg Hardy. You guys fucking. Is that what's happening here? Can we now Tui? He said, let's bang. Would you be willing to man size him i mean okay that's too much let's get out of that direction all right let's get into the main topic the main show let's do it and we are going to start off this friday how we typically start off

fridays and that's with our head-to-head betting segment so a recap last year we went head-to-head for 12 months your boy bc somehow pulled the upset, pulled it out, exposed himself. We're going to find out what concert we end up booking. We're going to get everything together. You're going to see that. But we have new rules, new structure, but the same head-to-head format. So Luke, last year, we went five picks a piece in different categories. But Mikey Mormo, listen to the fans. We put our heads together, got some nice suggestions from the people. And here's how we are going to do OK Bet in the new year. Head to head each Friday.

Three picks a piece. But those picks will be tracked with a $10 bet each straight up. Mikey will keep track of the odds and the money made and lost. But basically, we are playing here, Luke. straight up. Mikey will keep track of the odds and the money made and lost, but basically we are playing here, Luke, not we're not playing here for who has the better record, but who has made the most money based on the straight up picks that they're going after. But Oh, by the way, there will be some kickers each month. Luke and I have access to three separate bonus bets that we can pull out at any time that can really change this up. One of them, we'll call it the vibes pick.

Double your money of any pick once a month, any time. There's also a hater alert, which is one of us in the moment forcing the other person to change their pick on the spot. If Luke's going, hey, you know what? I think that Armenian guy is going to win by knockout. Not so fast, Luke. Not this week. Okay, that's how that one goes. And then finally, Luke, you know what? I think that Armenian guy is going to win by knockout. Not so fast, Luke. Not this week, okay? That's how that one goes.

And then finally, Luke, you want to do a method of victory? Well, once a month, you can add plus 300 odds to any pick by adding how it will end. And if you hit that, you hit big. We're going head-to-head. I'm sure KY, Luke, is also going head-to-head with us. Do you have anything to say to that gentleman? Yes, good luck, Mr. Astroglide. I wish you all the best. put the ass in astro glide ky

thank you very very much all right so without any further ado let's go to the intro head to head once again ufc fight night back this weekend this one's called okay bet we got to get new animation yeah we're gonna we're gonna refresh everything coming up but you know our odds are once again brought to us by fan duel luke you can download the fan dual sports book today we thank them for partnering with us luke uh we had a great 2023 now it's time to get after it ufc fight night back this weekend our turn better be back to defend his trio of light heavyweight titles against Callum Smith. A lot to pick from. So, Luke, I won last year. So I'm going to let you go first with your first pick.

Three picks apiece, straight up betting. We're going by the odds. Each pick is worth $10. Here we go. Real quickly, just one point of order, if I may. Here we go. Because now is just not a good time to do the payoff for any variety of reasons. Not least of which is we're actually trying to find the right show to go to, which is really going to be like dealer's choice in BC's part for the most part. So we're just trying to figure that out. But please don't worry, BC. Would it be fair to say that no later than second quarter we'll probably have the payoff done? Well, you're right.

I forgot to say the other big part of the rule. So not only will we try to get that payoff done for 2023, no later than second quarter. We got to get everything in a row. Once we start hitting the road again, it's going to be a lot easier to potentially pull this off. But Luke, we have changed the rules this year. One more thing on the payoffs.

There will not only be the end of year payoff. There will be four payoffs throughout the year. So we are still going head to head for 12 months, but at every quarter, April 1st, July 1st, October 1st, we are going to put out a vote on social media with four possible punishments, results, and the fans can pick which punishment they want for the other person based on who is in

the lead at that moment fans can suggest punishments now by heading over to our email of morning combat at gmail.com so luke i don't know if you have to wear workout gloves on the show for a couple days something's gonna happen fun we're gonna get after that every quarter here we go head to head 2024 it starts now what's your first pick all right so here was my logic for the first time we're doing this right under these new rules i'm going to go intentionally a little bit on the conservative side because i want to see how this all feels i don't really know what kind of differences are in order also i wanted to start bc with a pick and kind of keep the main event pick, which interestingly was not a source of strength for me last year.

I hope I can reverse that. So I'm going to try to do a main event pick every single weekend that we do this. So with that in mind, the UFC main event, a rematch between Megamed on Kalayev and Johnny Walker. First one ending the last time UFC 294 via referee. No, actually via doctor stoppage in the worst kind of way possible. Although the guy was like, where are you? The desert. We all know the story.

Okay. So who's going to win in the rematch? It is a substantial favorite. The guy I'm picking. This is not necessarily the most difficult one, but because it is the main event, I wanted to include it. Give me Megamed Ankhalaev over Johnny Walker in the rematch tomorrow at the UFC Apex facility. All right. Rounding out the odds for that main event as we head into our first UFC card of the year,

Magomed Ankhalaev, according to FanDuel Sportsbook, a minus 550 favorite, Johnny Walker plus 390. So, Luke Thomas, you are betting a $10 bet on the minus 550 odds of Magomed Ankhalaev, just so people understand how this game is going to work. But Luke, to focus on that and spotlight on that main event for a second, our colleague at CBS Sports and a fine member of this show's extended family, Shaquille O'Neal. Doing a lot of texting me these days.

A lot of texting. Shaquille O'Neal of Vancouver. Hey, he caught up with both fighters. And you mentioned the illegal knee, which put us in this situation to run this back a second time so before we continue with our picks i do want to check in on this topic there was a little bit of a back and forth between these two i want to start off with this here's ankalaya talking about why the knee what happened the mistiming of it let's hear from him on the shack mma youtube channel talking to good old Shaq Mujuri? You know, the plan was I was pushing him up against the cage. So my job was to kind of make him feel a little more relaxed and go up on the cage.

And at that point, I was going to catch him with the knee that I threw out. But it actually didn't go according to plan. When I was pressuring him against the cage, he didn't raise up. And so I just didn't time it well. It was just a mistake was a mistake it happens these are the things that happen in the professional fight uh you know so so obviously it wasn't the plan but it is what it is interesting explanation that is obviously being translated there as a magma and colif speaking it's kind of weird to just watch two faces not moving and then

there's a voice well it happens a lot luke in our history when when my thing isn't plugged in all the way you can see my mouth moving and nothing's happening here but uh ankle live would take it even further of not just accusing walker of of being able to continue but not doing it but really wanting a way out this is interesting let's go one more time to malcolm yeah of course he's gonna say whatever he has to say because at that moment he basically he basically dropped the fight. He didn't want to fight anymore. And it's not the first time a strike like that has been thrown in the UFC. There's been other moments where somebody got hit with the knee of that sword and then got up and continued the fight. But he pretty much knew that he had to get out at that point. So that's why he dropped the fight. So of course, he's going to say whatever you need to hear in order to make him look better.

Luke, before we hear from Johnny Walker on this topic, is there anything from Anka Live's point of view that you would say was accurate there? Should Johnny Walker have continued? Well, you could make a call about whether or not the doctor ultimately intervened in the wrong way or not. I think that Walker's answers weren't great. I'm not one of these guys. Everyone, again, everyone wanted to be like, you know, name the three Baltic states or, you know, the largest river in this South American country, blah, blah, blah.

That's not what we're, this is not a geography quiz. Asking someone what country they're in is not a difficult task, but okay, okay either here or there you can decide whether or not the doctor followed protocol or not that's up to you but i don't really feel like what he did was all that unusual in the course of human behavior the thing is this bc he wants to make it like i mistimed the knee it's not to it's not a ludicrous argument it's not but the problem is his decision making prior to that day had been questioned in another in many other circumstances from both from individual choices around what to do in the fight then also just kind of fight iq questions this is more a discipline question than fight iq but he just he's bringing in baggage about decision making previously so i don't think

that explanation he offered is crazy it's just you don't know how much to take that seriously given all of the other boneheaded errors he's made before. All right. Well, Johnny Walker got a chance to respond to the comments from Ankalayev here with Shaq MMA. Let's hear it. What was going through your mind in that moment?

I just upset because you trained so hard, a lot of commitment, you know, investment. I said, I would say that you lost a lot of commitment you know investment i said i would say that you lost a lot of good quality time with your family you know and a lot of commitment in diet you it's a life commitment and when the fight stopped without the result she's very disappointed because

you work so hard for that moment and there is no result like what the i want to keep fighting like you know what i mean even the doctor stop and the referee as well call out the illegal knee he should be disqualified anyway but the doctor took a smart decision for me because i'm never gonna say no i was gonna keep fighting you know we're fighting we are warriors and that's what all matter no. I was going to keep fighting. You know, we're fighters. We are warriors. And that's what all matters for us. We just want to keep fighting. But 100% if I keep fighting, I'm going to have a disadvantage on the fight because he landed a good knee on my jaw.

I absorbed all of the energy on my jaw. My neck was soft like weeks after the fight, you know. So it is what it is now. So Saturday, I'm going to get my my little revenge you know well speaking of that revenge Luke he would take it a little bit further later in the interview let's hear one more time from the flying wild

man Johnny Walker he seems to think that you know you didn't want to fight anymore after taking the knee and you were kind of looking for a way out I just wanted to give you the chance to sort of respond to that so if you want to play without rules take all of the rules off then i'm gonna be ready to anything that can happen if you want to play by the rules i don't have to worry about the knee in my face when I have three positions on the floor, you know?

So, I was ready to fight by the rules. If you don't want to fight the rules, take the rules out. I sign up without the rules. Then you're going to soccer kick, you're going to punch him in the balls, you're going to poke him in the eyes. I don't care. That's it. Luke, any chance we can go Valley-Tudo

rules for this rematch tomorrow? Well, considering that would ruin things again, I sincerely hope not. By the way, you know what's interesting? Shaq was like, what was going through your mind at that moment? And I wanted to be like, no condoms in Scotland. No condoms in Scotland. Just none. Just burning through trim.

Yeah, raw dog Royval style. We'll get to Brandon Royval,ival by the way big news coming up later in the show all right you can watch those interviews in full on the shack mma youtube channel shout out to shack majori happy new year to you luke your first pick magomed and khalaev over johnny walker straight up my first pick on you on okay bet to kick this off i'm going to stay on that ufc card i'm going to go on a one in a featured fight co-main event that I'm very much interested in and that's that flyweight rematch matching Mateus Nicolaou against

Manel Copp. As we look at the odds right now on this second chance here for Copp, minus 280 the favorite according to FanDuel plus 220 Nicolaou. We talked up this matchup on Wednesday. Very excited about it. I do believe the winner is going to be up there in the title picture

But at minus 280 with Manel Kopp's momentum of late And how he's turned his game around since that defeat I'm going to ride Manel Kopp here Straight up minus 280 over Matthias Nicolaou I like the I don't like his post-fight interviews per se, Luke But I like the aggression I like how he's rounded out his game

He's a handful right now for this division A lot of respect to Nicolaou post-fight interviews per se, Luke, but I like the aggression. I like how he's rounded out his game. He's a handful right now for this division. A lot of respect to Nikolaou, but I think Cop has evolved nicely in over the past two years. We're going to see a fun fight. Let's see Cop get his hand raised. Yeah, I think that's a good bet. All right. So for my next one, again, we're just doing sort of straight up picks. And this one that was one of the ones, BC, I had spotlighted. You were asking me about it previously or you're asking like you know what were some other fights on this card that you really care about and there are two guys in the ufc who are brothers uh there are the basharat brothers and so for me i like farid basharat in this particular fight over taylor lapolis which

is one of the best fights i I think, on tomorrow's card. They've got Basharat at a minus 280. He and his brother Javid, I think, have a very bright future. I really like both of their games. Well-rounded. I think they're still kind of growing into their games, growing into their, you know, it's a little bit less true that they're growing into their bias,

but I think still working on the physicality of their game is perhaps a better way to put it. And Taylor Lapolis, I think, has a tremendous amount of experience more than double the fights of i think we're actually at double the fights that basharat has but nevertheless i just like the well-roundedness i love the control and the grappling there's really a lot to like with this guy's game it's a bit more competitive obviously than the main event at least on paper at minus 280 for basharat but that's what i'm going to ride with give me the uh the gentleman from afghanistan all right luke afghanistan i saw on instagram was voted the least safe country of all the countries on this planet once again this year so that breeds yeah

i mean i've seen people be like state department stuff like don't go out there as a tourist i thought that was relatively obvious but apparently not you know apparently no luke who do you think has a brighter future collectively the basharatirot bros or the Bone Femes who both were humble? That's a great question. Both brothers are powerful. Those are great teams. Maybe Boshirot, but they're a little bit more unproven at relatively speaking but they're more well-rounded too so and they're less they're less risk takers in a good way so yeah

could be interesting interesting stuff uh as you said farid farid basharat my plus minus 280 against the plus 220 lapelist luke going basharat my second pick Luke I'm going to stay on This UFC card but I'm Going to head on over here What division are we in here let me catch myself up Middleweight of course Luke Phil Hawes But knocked out in three of his last Four bouts and he enters This one going up

Against Bruno Fajita who Is a minus 132 Favorite against the very slight Underdog house. Look, I know Phil house can bang. I know what he brings to the table, but I'm a little nervous on this recent slide of his, even though he's got a finish win as the only victory in that four fight

stretch, but the three knockout losses consecutively, I like the run Bruno Fajita has been on. I like what he brings to the table here. I think this will be an exciting fight. Give me the Brazilian minus 132 there on the bet. I'm liking this. I'm liking the direction I'm going here to start off. Very good. I kind of agree with that.

I don't think that's a bad bet at all. Phil Hawes, one of these guys who is on paper, you would imagine he would be a world beater. Just didn't really get put together the appropriate way for whatever reason. So there you have it. All right, for my last and final pick, BC, I'm going to go with a gentleman who I think is kicking off the card, if I'm not mistaken. He has two fights in

the UFC. He goes by the name of The Fearless. It's Joshua or Josh Vann. Listen to these numbers, BC. Listen to these numbers. Now, again, these are only from two UFC fights, but both of them went the distance, so this is six full rounds of UFC action. Strikes landed per minute, 9.2. 9.2, an extraordinarily high amount. Striking accuracy, 51%. That's about right. Strikes absorbed per minute. This is high, but again, relative to how many he's landing, it's 5.93. Now, that's very, very high, but he's bombing on people, too. Striking defense, 63%, which is interesting. Takedowns per 15 minutes, high, but he's bombing on people too. Striking defense, 63%, which is interesting. Takedowns per 15 minutes, one, so he can mix up the action a little bit. Accuracy is not great. Takedown defense, 87%. He had that great fight against Kevin Borjas

at UFC 295 last year, and then he had a very competitive back and forth with Zalgis Zamogulov in his UFC debut. I like this guy a lot. Now he's got a bit of an issue in this fight, BC. He's 5'5". His opponent is 5'7". He has a 65-inch reach. His opponent's 69. That being said, I just like what he's got going on in his doggedness. I think he can set up his strikes well. He can be a good combination puncher. He's resilient. There's a lot of really exciting things about his game. This will be, I think, the UFC debut for Felipe. I don't know if it's pronounced Bunez or Boone's. But in either case, I like Josh Vann, who, according to our friends at FanDuel,

is sitting at a minus 250. So give me Joshua Vann. Interesting pick right there, Luke. I'm going to close my third pick on the same card, but go with this Bantamweight banger. This is really one I've circled on there, and it's Ricky Simone against Mario Bautista. Bautista riding a five-fight win streak since that loss to Trevin Jones. He comes in as a plus 148 underdog, but I'm not only going to stay with the chalk here for all three picks. Big fan of what Simone is doing. I know

he's coming off of that fifth round stoppage loss to Song Yedong, which snapped his own five-fight win streak, but we've seen this guy go down a little bit and come back up in a big way. I expect this fight to be very competitive, but Luke, once a month, we've got an opportunity in three different categories to roll the dice a little bit. So I was really feeling, looking at closely at this card and saying, look, you know, I won last year's okay bet on vibes. I got the feels. I got that itchch i got that scratchiness okay i'm going that way again i'm going with a vibes pick on ricky simone which means double the money 20 20 on the line here for the minus 184 favorite ricky simone against mario bautista it will not

be easy but this is how i get down Luke going after the feels let's do it those are my three picks on okay bet all right very good well done my friend love it all right uh Luke any any other any other fights on this UFC fight night card you're looking to lean a certain direction in terms of uh picks yeah I mean look we didn't we didn't throw Jim Miller Gabriel Benitez in this but jim miller's a slight favorite coming in yeah that one's he's already that one's competitive that i don't have a strong feeling about that one so let's talk about jim miller for a second i we talked about where he's at in the lead in terms of most wins most appearances in ufc history but

luke it seems matter of fact he feels like he's been given some level of assurance that he will be on ufc 300 have you seen the petition he's trying given some level of assurance that he will be on UFC 300. Have you seen the petition? He's trying to get signed thousands of signatures so that Bruce Buffer will announce him as Jim fucking Miller at UFC 300. Normally, I'd say, you know what? It might be a little bit too crass for a publicly traded company, but we're just saying all F words lately into the microphone. I mean, all of the F words, Luke. So will this get passed in your eyes well will dana say you know what jim miller you

got this you're the the winningest fighter in this company's history it'd be hilarious if it didn't right i mean i mean the things you can say you can say and maybe you could even say the n word uh i don't know but basically are you no no i'm not saying you should, or it's a good idea, but if someone did, they're going to do anything about it. So where does the, where does the F word fit into that one? Seems much lower down the list. So couldn't imagine why I wouldn't get past, but though I'm sure they'll find a reason not to. Your three picks to recap on the clothes here for our first episode of.

Okay. Bet for the new year. Malgomet and Kali off of OK Bet for the new year. Magomed Ankulayev, minus 550. Farid Basharat, minus 280. Joshua Vann, minus 250. On the flip side, BC going $10 for Manel Kopp at minus 280. Bruno Fajeda at minus 132. And Ricky Simone doubling down with the vibes, $20 on him at minus 184.

All right, Luke, that's the news that fits for this fight night. You fired up because of the gap? Like, are you feeling that itch? Like, I'm starting to really be like, man, I don't care if they're all contender series fighters. I got to see people fight now. I'm ready. It's been a long winter.

No, I don't feel that way at all. I don't have any desire to just see MMA just to see MMA. I need to see. I'm not saying I want to lower my standards. I'm just saying that it to lower my standards i'm just saying that itch is real because when they go every week for better or worse and then they take a month off you feel it luke you do you feel it i'll be i'll be completely honest with you i don't feel that at all zero none actually if we can really get honest i don't feel anything inside

you know yes no no dude i always have an itch like when a good like okay like i have mean, all the anticipation in the world for Volkan Teporia, like, I have all the anticipation in the world for the return of Bud Crawford, or even stuff smaller than that, like, whoever Jerron Ennis is going to fight next, yes, like, fine, all that stuff, but just to have, like, fights at the apex, am I, are my balls itching for fights at the apex? No, they're not that. That would not be accurate. No. Look, before we transition to our first topic, which is, oh, by the way, some updates on UFC 300 and some other fight announcements. Did you see that video that Mikey texted us from Mike Perry from his

podcast? Yes or no? Uh, I did. Yeah. It was a tease for the upcoming episode in which Mike was making a rant that Nate Diaz should be on UFC 300 and should be against him.

And he cold called Hunter Campbell and was like, yo, give me the low money, but give me percentage points on the pay-per-view. I want to fight Nate Diaz. And then Hunter apparently said, how about this idea instead? And then they cut the cliffhanger to watch the episode. I didn't even consider this but is there any chance arguably the combat sports athlete of the year last year mike perry will somehow end up on the most important fight card in a decade

mike perry has been pulling off uh quite the successful moves since leaving the ufc i think if he i mean it looks like he dude he's like being thoughtful about his return right i mean you can call that a gimmick but that's still a thing he's trying to do in a executed planned way um maybe a decent chance i mean i feel like the ufc would probably pass on it but i'd love it if they didn't i'll put it that way how about that be fantastic that's the kind of like outside the box insert hot star of the moment that's really what mike perry is he was a average almost journeyman guy that we loved in the ufc but boy has he raised his profile and i'd pop for him and nate that's just me talking but let's get into topic number one on this friday and that is the recent fight announcements there's been a few

of them luke and we're going to start off right at the top for the April 13th, Las Vegas UFC 300 card. We've been debating really ad nauseum the idea of what's it going to look like. I was on the Mike Heck show on MMA fighting yesterday, Luke, and I caught an earful from both him and Jed Mishu II about my pessimism. And they reminded me how many big fights for UFC 200 were announced in the two month and one month window heading into there. Well, we're still three months and a day out from UFC 300. So maybe I'll slow my roll a little bit, but Dana did announce earlier this week. I've got a big announcement later tonight, about 300 get ready. We were all kind of trying to

figure out if that was just another Nina drama power slap skit. It was a fight, but it came like after midnight hours after he said it. And it's Weili Zhang versus Yan Xiaonan for the UFC women's strawweight title. The first all Chinese title matchup in UFC history. But Luke, it's not in China where it belongs. Am I out of bounds to, to feel like this fight is kind of out of place here,

despite the respect that I have for Bull? I got to be honest, BC. I really, really don't get the bellyaching about this one. I don't know that I understand it. Well, I mean mean here's the thing first of all when we did the mock cards again just to clarify one more time the task was as i understood it hey who do you think is actually available so we know we're not picking cm punk or some crazy thing who do we think is actually available he's available he's actually

not he's not he's definitely not but okay neither you understand how the way I was looking at it. So I kind of excluded Islam Makachev because I thought Ramadan would get in the way and I didn't pick GSP, blah, blah, blah. And so I went and made a bunch of fights. I didn't love all of them myself. I don't have really much interest in seeing Alex Panetta fight Tom Aspinall. That doesn't do much for me. But, like, I'm just trying to think, just doing a basic head count,

hey, who's available? What can they do with this? I mean, you can only come with a very finite amount of choices this was one of them on my mock card bc so when they actually announced this fight i was like yeah right like they don't have fuck all else to go with so i understand the complaint in the following sense which is hey this is actually a good fight. I don't think it's really got the fans super enthusiastic at all, but most of the fans, the hardcore fans, do respect Zhuang Wai Li. They don't really have a problem with Yan Xiaonan getting the title fight, and I think there is this recognition to the point that you raised about, hey, I know that we tried

to go to China last year in Shanghai, and that fell apart. Obviously, they've been before, but they really want to go and make this kind of full-throated effort. This is the first time it's been an all-China UFC title fight in the organization's history. It's never happened before. So wouldn't you want to save that for any burgeoning effort in China? However, we do not know why they pulled the Shanghai contest. And we don't know if they're going to go back to China at any time soon. More to the point, they have to service this UFC 300 card.

The UFC basically, and this is always a problem that they have to solve, and I think for the most part they do kind of solve it, but even an organization with as much resources as them can't always get it right. They have to rob Peter to pay Paul off their roster. They have to kind of rip one fight from here and put it there. And they have these competing interests about, Hey, which markets are we going to develop on which calendar, which time I just feel like they needed something that had prestige. And I'm sorry, this is a prestige fight. You don't have, it's not a big fight. It's not a box office draw, but it is a prestige fight. And they had to put it on the card i i full i literally expected this so to me when they rolled

it out and i saw people being like oh that's it i'm like guys where are these mystery fighters you keep thinking are available i don't even know who the fuck they are this is who's available this is what it's going to be like here's my problem and i'm really not trying to do the the hater aid thing the anti-dana ufc thing or the let me find a reason to complain just because i'm playing that role no my point is this they raised our expectations in my opinion not just by having a ufc 300 card this destination all the way down we know the quality of 100 and 200 so we should know what to expect and then then you got Dana saying many times, guys, you're not going to believe from the opening fight to the end.

We still, they still might come through in that way. They've got three more months. I'm not saying they don't, but we've done this exercise so many times of mock drafts, or who do you think, or, and you're looking around and the cupboards getting bare and they super

loaded UFC two 99 a month before, which is great for Miami. And on top of that, we're already starting to see, you know, Mahachev come out and say, I want to be fighting Justin Gaethje in June. We've got, and there are two pay-per-views in June, by the way. And also you got Conor McGregor coming back, not at 300 where he wanted, if this is true, but him potentially at International Fight Week.

So when I hear all of that, $2.99 getting load up, Conor on a different card, it leads me to believe they do have a grand design and a grand plan and it's not that Whaley versus Yan is a bad fight it's a very good fight in one of my favorite divisions very good but even with the potential logistics of going to China or going back to China for them this fight belongs there regionally in that area of the world this fight is like you is arguably the biggest you can make. It's not that it would be out of place on 300. It's just, what do we have left?

What do we have left to put on this card? If Whaley versus Jan is the co-main event, I'm going to have issues. If it's the first of three title fights on the main card, hold on, let me finish my thought before you jump in, because there's about 20 more seconds. If it's the first of three title fights on the main card, that's certainly not awful, especially if the other two featured fights to kick it off are fantastic.

But, Luke, we have been resigned to the idea that Leon versus Bilal is going to be on this card. So we don't know what the main event is yet. But if the co-main is Leon Bilal, and this women's fight is the third fight on the main card, that's good to very good. That ain't spectacular. This is UFC 300. I want spectacular. It was DC versus John 2.

Brock Lesnar coming back at 200. Aldo Edgar 2. I mean, there were a lot of things that popped. This doesn't pop. And that's my fear three months out that if we are lining these two fights up, what is going to be the main event? I still think it could be Izzy. We're going to talk about Izzy's potential return in a second, but Luke, I'm nervous about this announcement. I think I've got the right to,

if I'm expecting what they're telling me to expect. Dude, I got to tell you. Okay. Let let me let me ask the question this way because I I'm just so confused by the people who are not understanding like where we're at with this it's like guys you know I wanted this Honda Accord to go 200 miles an hour guys it's a Honda Accord it's just not going to and I'm not saying the UFC is that what I'm saying is in terms of what's left of their resources and how people are perceiving it from a pomp and circumstance kind of again, because I do think those title fights are prestige fights. I just I just genuinely do not understand what people are expecting. So let me ask the question this way.

What is the UFC in your mind doing that they should not be doing or rather what should they be doing that they haven't done yet? And I want specifics, not some kind of general thing. should not be doing or rather what should they be doing that they haven't done yet and i want specifics not some kind of general thing unless they wow us with the main event of something we didn't see coming or unless they're unless you know yan versus way lee is going to be like the prelim main event or the second fight on the main card and i'm going to be you know found out to be eating crow and i'll be happy to eat crow fights to me like Leon Bilal and Jan versus Whaley again are good to very good but they're not crossover fights they're not you know casual fans wake up old UFC fans come back and to me that's what 300 is and should be and they're setting us up right now in my opinion

unless they come through with something like Max versus Gaethje or and then something else big on top of that where it is starting to lead me to believe that they've potentially looked at the schedule in the first half, which is looking very strong. Not here to say anything bad about it, but essentially saying to themselves, you know what? 300 is going to sell itself,

so let's just make it a deep card. It's going to get a certain amount of buys no matter what. Let's not stress about that. Maybe we'll put Conor in the International Fight Week. We know we have other events that we want to blow out and they will no che the fight night in mexico city the fight night in london the fight night in saudi they're gonna have a great first half of the year but historically these round number cards mean something i felt like they gave me a tease that they're not going to follow through on and these are not star power fights luke they're prestige

because there's titles at stake but again they're not who are the guys that they're not picking that are available to pick okay here we go i just keep coming back to it's like dude the try to tell my kid these are the toys you have to play with look at them they're right here they they're not other toys we're not going to the playground they're right here the you can literally look at who is available, and you don't have to, like, keep living this promoter-fed lie, like, oh, well, 300 is going to be blah, blah, blah. It's going to be great. Like, I'm not worried that's going to be a bad card.

I think, by the way, the tandem of 299 back-to-back with 300, knock on wood, we don't get a lot of injuries, knock on wood, is going to be a great back-to-back stretch. I'm actually quite looking forward to it. I just understand this being like guys we have high hopes why do you have high hopes and i know what mikey is saying which is dana keeps you know hey i've got a big 300 announcement blah blah blah i hope this is 300 end of conversation we have high hope no not end of conversation guys you can do a head count look Look at who is available. Who is available? So I know you're saying, guys, I gave you the toys.

Play with what I gave you. Luke, they took the great toys. They put them on $2.99. They took Connor and pushed him off. I'm telling you that it seems like there was an opening to make these fights we're talking about. Now, to your question of who have they not used that they should, I still want to see if Gaethje, Holloway, Poirier, some of these big names. Or not Poirier. He's got a fight now so another one taken off but whatever remaining names are

left adesanya i mean we can go across the board that haven't been used or obviously strickland versus ddp if they can turn around quick this will change this conversation but once again luke there are they knew about this card far in advance they're building up cards around it unless they're going to trick me with something i haven't seen coming they're not setting this thing up as of right now to be a to be what it could be what it should be okay so fine so if you wanted to say in the planning of the calendar year that 300 should have taken a priority in ways that 299 has taken away from it unnecessarily it might be your worldview or moving connor to june and who knows what the reasons are why they did that ultimately and prioritize 300 the way they did. If you want

to make a bigger, broader argument about calendar planning well in advance and prioritizing certain ways in that sense, I understand. I'm simply saying as today we wake up, let's say we've been in a coma and you wake up and someone says, okay, I know you've been in a coma, but now it's time to make this card. The first thing you're going to ask is who is available? What, what, what resources do we have to work with? And then once you go through that, it takes away any of this suspense. Now, again, we do have to keep some level of intrigue about it, some level of mystery, because who is to say about maybe they could pull a Brock out of the rabbit out of their hat. I don't, if that interests you at all, I don't know, but something like that.

There is some kind of, I would argue remote possibility of that, but I just want everyone to just time out for just a second, whatever your hopes were, whatever your dreams were, whatever your fair criticisms might be of how it should have been handled up to this point, stop for a second, go look at the roster and tell me who is available and then once you actually do that this gets a lot simpler one more point i do want to make bc what's simple about it you get a worse card that's i mean you're like it gets a lot simpler dude they could have put o'malley on this my point is they saw this coming a mile away they could have planned it better but i guess okay fine but o'malley is not on that card and so this is my point like it's one thing to say damn it you know o'malley should have been in that card

fair enough or you know john jones is injured so that's not really fair but you know uh whatever there could have they could have put some different things in some different places fair enough but they didn't right so my point is now that that has not been done what is the reason for the maintained suspense that you think something is coming down the pike that's what i just don't get the suspense is over i mean we don't know exactly who's going to have my name but again the available names make this a a much a much narrower possibility of what it could be well the dad lecture mike heck gave me again reminded me that many of those fights for for uh 200 were last

minute obviously that was made more difficult by the original plan being Conor versus Nate uh two and then that got pushed off when Conor wouldn't fly from Iceland blah blah blah remember that story but um and I do expect them to hit us with at least one last minute one but the reason why some surprises yeah because if it's staying as it is, I mean, seriously, Luke, if the co-main event is below and Leon, if the third title fight is Whaley versus Yon. And if that main title fight is like, you know, has one half of it really good,

but isn't slam dunk. You're just buying a deep card. That's all I'm saying, but let's go. Let's keep the show rolling on there. We're going to get Whaley versus Yon, which felt like a little bit of want, want from the big buildup.

I do have one final comment. I know we've got to move on, but I would like to make one last point, if I may, which is, and I know everyone's like, you're going to turn everything into UFC bashing. I'm really not. I'm not trying to, but I would like to ask a question to UBC to tell me maybe we're both biased, but maybe I'm just biased. Maybe not. Let me just pitch something at you. There have been criticisms that have been made recently, not necessarily by us, but by other folks, that the UFC definitely has a lot of B or even maybe A- stars, guys who can do respectable numbers on pay-per-view,

but are not necessarily huge draws. Granted, in an era where getting pay-per-view buys is still harder than it ever potentially has been. And Jon Jones is still out there. I do think he's a very big draw, but obviously he's on ice because of his injury, so that's not really in play. Conor as well, but they've got him moved to June.

My question is this. Is there not at least some thought and consideration that should be given to the idea that we're just not really in an era with many elite UFC stars. We don't have five or six of them floating around. We've got one or two of them floating around. And by the way, if those one or two are John and Connor,

their days in the sport are limited as well. So my point is, part of what is ailing 300 is simply that the amount of stars in MMA has, relatively speaking, declined, which is making the other matchmaking woes even more difficult. Is that in any way a fair consideration? It 100% is. And by the way, I just want to reiterate one more time, if it ends up being Izzy versus the winner of Strickland versus DDP,

that will be some level of injection of like a hot feud that will change this conversation to a degree. But to answer your question to answer um your question what was your question again luke is like are are we living through an age where there are simply just fewer stars than there once was i think we have to look at the espn deal as changing the the the need to promote pay-per-views on a level where you're actively trying to max out the value of the pay-per-view where now it's more like, well, we're getting this baseline for each show. That's great. I also think, Luke, that, you know, I've always felt they've purposely really tried to always keep the brand as the face, the three letters or and or Dana as the face of the operation and try not to overly push singular fighters above

and beyond. I mean, sometimes when you do, you get into troubles. Like when you have a McGregor, the all-time biggest one, or you have a Brock who's not going to stay full-time, is going to bounce around. I know he had an injury, which ultimately ended his career. But, you know, Conor finally makes that money. Then he wants stock. Then he wants to do the Floyd fight. Then he wants to, you know, all this stuff.

I think they would prefer right now to have a larger group of A- to B- than have those A- because sometimes that can be a little bit problematic. And I don't think they're the same promotional vehicle anymore. They're not motivated the same way financially. They're motivated in different ways financially, meaning live gates. Let's put somebody in their home town or state or country and let's jack that up. Where it used to be about, Oh, this person could be something like when Chris Weidman suddenly upset Anderson Silva and I'm working at ESPN, dude, they sent Chris

Weidman for car washes at ESPN, which are when, when, uh, when an athlete arrives at in Bristol, Connecticut, the studio and does eight to nine hours of just interview, interview, interview on every show and every possible dude, they sent Weidman three separate times to ESPN between the first and second Silva fights. That was the old school model of we have somebody who might be special. Let's get him out there on every show we can, everybody's website, everybody's podcast. That has changed, Luke, not just with the ESPN deal and the change of how they look at pay-per-views, but obviously the growth of fighter YouTube channels, fighters having their own podcasts, all of that.

So things have just shifted. But to your point, yes, we don't have breakthrough monster stars. I could argue that if you put O'Malley in the main event of UFC 300 and put the vehicle behind him, that could be a good move in that direction. You could say, well, what's the difference? He's had a loaded 299 card that's going to be in Miami star studded blockbuster. Yeah, they're still pushing him, but I don't think they're as targeted and focused as they used to be on taking a singular athlete and really trying to make him the next big thing. I don't think anyone is anymore. Luke,

if you really look across the board at combat sports promotion, that's sort of the old way to do it. Like it's not, you know what I mean? Like, you know, we trade, we were, you and I were working in our early days of combat sports where the newspaper to digital transition happened and that changed a lot of the amount of jobs how much you get paid how combat sports is covered all of that well now we're in the midst of the digital explosion and the fighters have their own you know ways to get their points across it's just changed it luke but i don't think they're, any promoters these days are really going after it the way they did five, 10 years ago in that specific lane. Maybe they don't feel like it's financially worth it for them. They just don't need pay-per-view to be the banger that it once did to make the money.

They don't need it. They don't need to have stars bigger than life than the way they once did because of the business model. Now it's a content model and a scale model and they've got that one on lock and so you're right it's about filling out there's just not many like you know it's interesting the overall level of popularity relative to when we started in mma is significantly higher like the baseline is way way way way higher but the larger than life figures man they're just not nearly as many of them and i don't know how much of that is intentional, but it feels real one way or the other. But also, I mean, do you think parody has done something to that?

Where the sport is now 30 years old, as opposed to 15, 20 years old, that it's just harder. It's harder to go on a long title reign. It's harder to be dominant over time. It's hard to do what guys like Jones, Gsp uh silva nunes had done with those you know 10 13 demetrius johnson long win streaks it's really really freaking hard to do that nowadays which also stunts the growth of certain stars so that's that's that let's stay on 300 though luke we got whaley versus yon the other announcement that came yesterday by the way great fight great

fight fight former champions in different divisions dev Devis and Figueredo, Cody Garbrandt. I know there's going to be a lot of people reacting the way you did, which is, oh, man, is Cody going to get served? I don't know. Let me say it flatly. That's a bad fight for Cody Garbrandt. That's a bad fight for him. I would not have accepted that if I was his team.

Okay, but if he's going to try to come back now on a two-fight win streak and in his early 30s, and if he's going to have a chance at one more run, you've got to beat guys like this in the deepest division in the sport, right? Right, but I mean, how realistic is that? We're talking about going from a guy in his last fight who himself was coming off of neck surgery. Now, to Cody's benefit and credit, he did look good. Did not look bad in any way. He looked good. He did his job perfectly.

Great job. So I am appreciative of the fact that he is entitled to an escalation from there and a duffer opponent because he looks so good and he performs so well. But, dude, we're talking about Devis and Figueredo, a former champion at 125 who just moved up to 135 and beat up a very good Rob Font. Like, beat his ass. His power carried with him.

He has phenomenal jiu-jitsu. He's surprisingly physical for the weight class. Now, again, Cody can thump too, and then Figueredo will take chances. Okay, fair enough. It's a fight, and then, you know, whatever. But realistically, that's a very bad fight for Cody Garbrandt. I am shocked that his team accepted it, to be honest with you. Two former champions.

They both bang. It's going to be interesting, wherever direction it goes. Luke, to close out the 300 talk, I'm going to read you the fights we already know. You just tell me if you think it's going to be on the main card or not. Whaley versus Jan. Yes? Yes, of course. Charles Oliveira, Armin Sarukin. I'm going to say...

I feel like it should be. That's a banger. Probably so. Yuri Prochazka, Alexander Rakic. No, that'll be on the prelims. Calvin Cater, Aljamain Sterling? Prelims. And probably the same for Bo Nickel to Cody Brundage

probably kicking off the card. So there we go for UFC 300. Other announcements, very interesting stuff going on. The UFC Mexico, is that Mexico City fight night card that's coming up? Yes, that's right. We were supposed to see Brandon Moreno in a number one contender bout against Amir Al-Bazi, if I'm correct on my setup here. Al-Bazi pulling out, though. Brandon Royval, the Raw Dog, fresh off the title loss to Pantoja, will slide in for a rematch.

Moreno, Royval, too. Luke, I got to go. Two thumbs up here. Do they confirm Royval? I know he volunteered. Do they confirm it? Yeah, he actually put out yesterday on Instagram that I have a big announcement coming,

and then I saw Brandon Moreno say it publicly. Oh, so you're saying did the promotion confirm it? Maybe not officially yet, but we seem to have two fighters saying yes okay well if they're both saying that i probably think it's true dude good for him i look he didn't look bad against well okay he got beat thoroughly by pantoja because he had no offense but his defense looked better he didn't make big mistakes um that'll be an interesting and and tough fight against moreno i don't know how much i like it but i like that one a lot more for him than I like Cody, for example, against Figueiredo. All right, that card is going to go down in Mexico February 24th,

and we have another fight that's been added to it. It's very interesting. Luke may be the brightest prospect since Aaron Pico. Insert Luke's angry response. Raul Rosas Jr., who did have that one defeat but bounced back, going to take on former Ultimate Fighter Ricky Tercios. What do you think about this matchup on February 24th? Appropriate step up. I mean, the guy he fought last time, who was the guy that Rosas fought last time without looking? I don't know. I don't know. Right, exactly. Exactly. I mean, exactly. So he's entitled to

someone who is a little bit above that because he dispatched with him relatively easily. So he has earned an appropriate step up. Let's see how he does. All right. Rosas is eight and one overall. To answer your question, Luke, he bounced back with a knockout win in the first round against Terrence Mitchell after losing to Christian Rodriguez, where he sort of imploded, gassed out, found his low moment.

We'll see if Rojas can bounce back. Luke, one thing you can say, though, when he fights in Las Vegas, they pop. If he's fighting here in Mexico onbruary 24th it's going to be a he's i mean people want i'm glad let's let's put him let's put him in places to get a fan base dude i'm not in any way opposed to him getting a fan base like let's let's promote the kid he's obviously talented and he crosses two worlds two thumbs up all i'm asking people is let's get make the rhetoric match the achievement not the other way around all right uh game bread bare knuckle on march 2nd we're gonna have a heavyweight title bout this is bare knuckle mma of course junior

dos santos fresh off the five round victory over what's left of roy nelson gonna take on former ufc middleweight Alan Belcher for the heavyweight strap he came over from BKFC do you care on March 2nd no not even a little all right well Luke that same night or afternoon we're going to see that UFC Saudi Arabia excuse me fight night card that Dana has teased will be pay-per-view like the only matchup we do have right here in front of us announced heavy weights gyrozinho rosenstreich against shamil gaziev are you feeling something no i don't i don't i don't care much okay look we're gonna go over to march 9th which of course is ufc 299 in miami dude that thing is so sick so loaded that card is amazing but it's badass we got two new fights robelis despanier josh parisian and luke um i

probably butchered uh despanier's name there but he is tell me if i'm wrong what the six eight judoka where where are we at with this guy from brazil six seven judoka out of uh cuba and uh he has four fights i believe which, total 19 seconds. He is just bombing on these bums. So hopefully he can get a bit of a better challenge here as it takes on that. With a Cuban background, he'll be fighting in Miami here for his debut. This will be interesting. Josh Parisian is the potential lamb being brought out to the slaughter as a tubby white guy, Luke.

We'll see what happens in that one. Same night, by the way, Michelle Pereira, the high-flying, now middleweight from Brazil, against Al-Faran impersonator Mihal Olekseyech. Luke, that'll be a war, right? That's a great fight. Yeah, Olekseyech is, I think, a little bit underrated. I mean, I wouldn't say he's the best that the division has to offer, but well-rounded, experienced, technical.

It's a good test. It's a good test for Pineda. I like it. He's got Polish power. He does come to fight. Let's move on over to March 23rd. That's a fight night card in Las Vegas. And, Luke, I popped big for this one.

UFC Women's Flyweight Division, former strawweight champion Rosnamiunas, who lost in her debut to Manon Farrow at 125, going to welcome Amanda Hibas. So in some ways it's two blown up strawweights looking to continue the reinvention at 125, but considering the loss that Rose had, Luke, this is suddenly an interesting fight. I mean, I know you're going to make jokes about, you know, what level of attire I'll be wearing on March 23rd watching this. But do you feel what I'm feeling? Because, you know, I'm considering that same tat with Whitmire that Mr. Hibas has after this one. Yeah, your dungarees and your underwear are going to be filled with dung.

And then around your ankles. I mean, the MK lube is going to be in full effect on that fight. But that aside, your general assessment of it, I think is quite correct. It's a much more interesting stakes fight than I would have imagined for what he boss was going to be at about a year ago. So maybe even for Rose actually. So yeah, I like this fight. Interesting one.

Same night, Davey Grant, Cody Gibson, and Gibson had that reinvention in the Conor McGregor ultimate fighter season recently world's toughest history teacher yeah not a bad fight there uh Steve Nguyen Steven Nguyen versus Jarno Ahrens that same night did I butcher that probably probably you don't care either way and Ricardo Ramos against Juicy J actually it's Ricardo Ramos he is uh Brazilian thank you for that all right we've got a rescheduling, Luke. It's going to go down March 30th in Atlantic City. Same card headline, by the way, Blanchfield versus Faroe. It's going to be Dominic Reyes against Carlos Olberg. Olberg called his shot.

We all kind of went, you want Dom Reyes? What? He got him, Luke. We're going to see this. Will this be the time that Dom Reyes can finally get back on track? You know, someone asked me yesterday if like, is that, you know, should he be taking this fight? And my answer is probably not, but for Reyes, it's a bit high stakes. If he wins, it's a great rebound.

It doesn't fix everything, but it would be a nice rebound. And if he loses and in particular, if he loses via vicious KO, to me that would be a signal that it's time to hang it up so um it's a huge stakes fight for dom well for both guys but especially dominic reyes he did move to the glover to share a camp there and uh connecticut came up poor in the first outing with that team first round knockout loss but speaking of potential retirements luke i don't know how he got cleared to come back he He is inspirational in terms of his drive, but Chris Weidman, for better or worse, is going to roll the body back out one more time.

He is teasing that this could be his last. It's the same night in Atlantic City. Bruno Silva, the opponent. I don't mean to be disrespectful, Luke, to the All-American. What Weidman has accomplished, he's one of the greatest middleweights in the sports history. I just don't want this, dude. his comeback from that leg injury went well shout out to him for the for the stick to itness and the perseverance it was weird Luke he took a lot of damage I I just you know he got

chopped up and I just don't want it anymore for him I want him yeah you know I don't I don't you know easy for us to say I echo that I don't want to be shitty to him. He's never done anything bad to me. He's only done great things for the sport. I recognize that. I totally understand it, but I'm with you. My interest level in, you know, maybe he wins, of course, you know, but my interest level into what you had described,

which is if he just goes out there and takes another beating, what's my interest level on that? It is negative 8 billion. I just have no fucking interest. You know what would have not his sake? I don't have an interest. my interest level on that it is negative eight billion i just have no fucking interest you know what would have not his sake i don't have an interest you know what of what would have not sucked if they did announce that it's probably his last fight but instead of doing bruno silva in atlantic city what if they did him versus luke rockhold in a rematch unlike the early prelims of ufc 300 those are the type of add-ons i'm looking for luke right little this little interest i don't

i don't i don't need to see these guys take this kind of damage anymore i like it yeah dude i can't believe the level of things that they're going to tolerate to have the next stage of their life absolutely fucked up dude i mean i mean dude just since bisping retired forget everything else before that which by the way its own medical own medical history. Just since he retired, the guy has surgery like two times a year. It's insane what he gave away from his own health to do what he did. And that's a choice he made and he achieved glory. And I'm sure in many ways he is probably happy with it. But dude, we always talk about it like the bill comes due. And the bill, both literally and metaphorically for Chris Weidman and his quality of life i i genuinely worry about it man i really really do here we go that's atlantic city in march let's go over to the

pfl uh peter murray was interviewed by john morgan veteran journalist and luke he's teasing the idea that anthony pettis versus cedric dume bay could actually be a real thing in the damn smart cage here's the quote yeah i mean cedric, fans in Paris will see him for sure. Compete with the PFL in Paris early this year in the Anthony Pettis-Dumbe conversation. It's a real one, Murray said. They both want to fight, and we'll put it together. I think it'll be fun.

Would be later this year. Your response to that? I hope the American fans can watch. Okay, but that's a crossroads fight that yeah i'm in that's all that's a wild fight right sure i mean i think it's a little crazy because i guess that it's true that if pettis wanted to wrestle he could i don't think that's why he wants the fight um and so you're like well you know doombay only has like what one or two pro mma fights something like that a handful so less than a handful um and uh you know he's taking on a much older guy who's got a ton of damage and so you know it kind of evens out there probably fair i don't hate it i don't hate

it but you know this thing with the pfl like every everyone wants them to be the little engine that could and i'm like i i hope you guys all recognize none of this matters unless the laws change i hope you i hope you understand that none of this shit matters at all like none of this matters unless the laws change. I hope you understand that. None of this shit matters at all. Like, none of it. Zero. I like this fight. It's creative.

That's how you use old veterans. You know, because look, there's the experience edge. There's the wrestling edge for Pettis, but he is past it. So this would be something. It would be something. I don't know. As long as, again, as long as American fans can watch it, great. Super in favor of it. If they can't, then what the fuck are we doing you know all right well israel adesanya luke to bring back one final time the tease and potential here of ufc 300 getting big star in

infusion let's talk about adesanya so he's kind of come out of the woodwork a bit he he talked with teddy atlas he was on a bunch of podcasts and he specifically talked to Combat TV about his timeline and his return. He said, when I come back into the gym and start training full time, I'm in a new space with a new energy, probably end of next month, meaning February, maybe. But I think with the way I heal my body, I don't think maybe it'll take that long. But yeah, end of next month, I'm probably thinking maybe earlier. We'll see. I'm going to rehab. Now things are tracking along nicely. So Luke Adesanya is basically saying he's coming back so healthy from this

injury that he could see himself starting to train next month. So I ask you this, Luke, I also saw a report that Adesanya could be cage side for Strickland versus DDP in Toronto later this month. Is that the missing link that if the winner of that fight can turn around quickly, that if we have Izzy in the front row, maybe even coming into the cage after, that this solves everything? Could Izzy start training in February and be ready in April?

Yes, probably he could. I think the guy's a bit of an iron Man and has a unique physical makeup in that regard. Like when he was competing, he just never, like one of these guys like never out due to injury. You know, it was just absurd what he's been able to do. And if you look at his overall competitive schedule between boxing, kickboxing, MMA, like the guy is just consistent.

This is probably the longest layoff of his career, to be honest with you. I'm not sure if that's true, but it's certainly among them. And either way it works. You either get the DDPp fight which has all the bad blood and everything else or you get the rematch with sean strickland which was also going to be an interesting test of everything else and you could plug that into 300 and again i don't know to what extent that would satisfy everybody else i would consider that if you've got that and then below and leon and then you've got the the women's uh fight and yon shanon and john wiley yeah that to me that's a great trio of car it's not blockbuster next level but it's a very

suitable main event or bc the other way direction that they could go is they end up they could go with the fifth fight between izzy and then uh alex pareda so yeah you got a couple of interesting options because when you and i were first starting this idea of next year, what could 300 look like? That was the fight I threw out to you first of the idea of like, look, if you're going to max something out for 300, then Izzy versus Poiton five or three in MMA for the light heavyweight title, give Izzy the chance to be two division champion,

give the rivalry a chance to continue in a Pacquiao Marquez type way where there's just crazy results left and right. Like who's going to end up winning this thing? I'm wondering if that's the move, Luke. And I specifically wonder if DDP and Strickland end up having a five round fight and they both, you know, take on injuries or what have you. That's got to be the move. And that would suffice, Luke. To me, I know there's people that would have customer fatigue in that matchup i wouldn't not for the light heavyweight title i would think that is central casting back at 185 i would yeah totally true i apologize for cutting you off

at 185 i'd be like what are we doing again i mean you know what is this doing for the division blah blah blah at 205 where it's just a complete clusterfuck goat rope at all times throw him in there who gives a shit yeah i'm totally in favor of that i'd love that fight and i know people saying what about jamal hill we did give an injury update it looked like he wasn't gonna be ready more toward like june so um based on what his manager had said we'd talk about that on wednesday so those are your teases your turns your announcements either way luke 2024 is going to be big even with zero zero pbc announcements yet

we know they're gonna where they're scheduled to launch the amazon era in march we've heard rumors of a second series but no announcements as of yet hopefully they can uh continue to add to this calendar because ingano versus aj is arguably the biggest fight of this first six months so far of what we know luke short of con of chandler right well i guess you could say well what's bigger francis versus joshua or 299. probably got to throw a few years ago too yes historically bigger probably not going to be as buzz worthy as a dollar but yeah well those those three are the biggest three let's put it that way there's a there's a excited excited let's go to topic number two it is a boxing match this weekend that that is worth your time the main card is expected to start 10 p.m eastern on espn espn plus quebec city my my people's home luke but it's a russian

slugger chechnyan bull i'm sorry yeah chechnyan and descent born in Dagestan residing in Montreal for the last decade. It's unified light heavyweight title holder, Artur Bieterbeev. Better believe it. 19 and 0 with 19 KOs. And Luke, there is optimism that a fight against Bevol for all four titles could be ahead of us this spring in Saudi Arabia. but first former super middleweight champion Callum Smith, 29 and one that only lost a 2020 unification loss to Canelo Alvarez at 168 pounds. He's two and oh in the division since moving up. This is a very interesting fight here. I think of note is this Luke better. We've just turned 38 or he will turn 38. Excuse me. A week after this fight, he was in a war last year with Anthony yard that we didn't expect in which he

got hurt, had a battle back. It does seem to some degree ages catching up with him, but he's also on the verge here. Better be if things go his way, this calendar year at 39 to have the biggest year of his career. Imagine if he beats Calum Smith, then fights B ball. I mean, this could be the true breakout cement him as a future all-time

great. It's just crazy that it's happening now at this age. And yet he's 19 and 0 with 19 KOs. I mean, could you imagine, look, if he retired unbeaten with all knockouts in every fight, could you imagine that? Someone asked me that me that like what would be the boxing significance of that is there any other analogous comparison you could make i don't think so because like no no i don't think so especially not on like this super title level no well that i mean okay special he is do you remember edwin valero luke from venezuela southpaw Slugger they he was 27 and 0 with 27 knockouts when he uh took his own life and and of his families in a horrible double murder there but that guy was being primed and set up for an eventual way to interject a lot of uh positivity and show do you remember that guy who murdered his family and then killed himself yeah he was also one of the greats uh you remember

boxing's Chris Benoit I hate to say it but it's true luke um they were going to set him up with with pacquiao in his rise and it was going to be a big fight unfortunately that guy took his life look that was somebody who was on that road 19 and 0 with 19 ko's when you fought mostly world-class competition this is wild this is a weird unique wild career dude and he you know and you can see like i'm not going to say like rock monoff shock fat rock monoff's wins are accidental that's not quite true but sometimes they tend to spring up a little bit uh late or somewhat surprisingly you know dude i don't ever get that feeling watching a better beef like he's just marching these fuckers down the entire time dude and he

has no problem mixing it up there is some there's a lot of scientific boxing going on it's not he's not some mindless marauder but the level of pressure he puts on the amount of power that he retains uh it's all a coordinated you know thoughtful effort but it's a physical effort too with the way which he just moves into these guys it's you you just know man like it doesn't take a lot for him to get the opening and then once he does there's no looking back man once this guy smells blood like once he cuts guys or once he hurts him there's nobody rallies i mean obviously the the results speak to that but it just it's very stark to watch someone work like him he is a special i can't wait for

this he's got it all he's got big size for the division crushing power in both hands not that everybody's fought an incredible amateur background he was a world champion at light heavyweight moved up to heavyweight fought in the 2012 olympics actually lost to alexander usic in the finals of the 2011 world championships and at the 2012 Olympics. But what he's done at 175 pounds was just completely clear out the division and beat everyone not yet named B-ball. Now he wants to get that chance, but Callum Smith up first. And Luke Vegas believes Callum Smith is in this fight as much as we can with boxing odds.

Minus 550, Archer Betterbeave, is your favorite according to FanDuel, plus 360 on Callum Smith. So we're going to have some other things to talk about, including this weird Vada result. But first and foremost, how much of a shot are you giving Callum Smith with that glossy record at 29 and one? He is a big puncher here. How do you sort of see this fight i have to tell you i have a very hard time believing that the guy that got walked down and cornered and batted around by canelo alvarez is going to be able to withstand not the same kind of attack but a reasonably similar-ish kind of pressure from a guy who fully fills out the weight class, is a known puncher, durable himself, by the way. I got to tell you, I know a lot of

people, I've seen some people pick Smith this week. They certainly know more about boxing than I do. I understand that there are some reasons to think that behind the length and the jab and the sort of the boxing fundamentals that Smith possesses. There are reasons for optimism for him. I recognize that. But this is what I mean about Betterbeef just walking these guys down and putting pressure on them. I just don't believe that the guy that Canelo was able to do that to will be able to withstand

even a 38-year-old Betterbeef. So yeah, that's where I come down on this. I don't have more to say much more than that. I've seen a lot of people make that same comparison and i can't argue it is but argue with it especially since calum smith is now one division higher he has is two and oh since moving up but you know hasn't beaten somebody at the super elite level and if canelo can do that to him what can better be do i do wonder though luke if these odds which are close in a boxing sense are just there more of the idea of where exactly is better

be that. He's never lost. He's never been in a position of great scare, but I don't know if you remember that fight he had right after the pandemic where he looked old. He looked a little bit out of it. We gave him a chance to prove us wrong. He came back in unification wins, including against Joe Smith Jr. to show us he's fine. But what do you make of that Anthony Yard fight? So Anthony Yard is muscular, a brawler, big time power. He was able to hurt Better Beef. He was able to make that a unique and interesting fight until he got stopped in the eighth round, even though he doesn't have anything close to the boxing ability of a Calum Smith. So is it just, hey, maybe better beef can be vulnerable against super big punchers but that's about it because i can't see calum smith being able to outclass better be from a technical

standpoint no no no no no no no no yeah i think yard was i mean there were several times where yard would land and you could see it would visibly rattle uh better beef not enough to really stop him as we know it in the end it was obviously he got his hand raised but i i remember him several times he's getting popped with punches that you know were probably unusual to take in that regard and also i think a guy like yard takes some risks that uh smith probably won't sure um and he guesses out too yard will pass out he'll go for broken gas he faded down the stretch as well especially when he started getting hurt when when he's again when better be hurts a guy dude it's it's curtains but uh so i understand and again to your point 38 is not necessarily the youngest although this guy's in great shape for 38 and blah blah blah so i it's not to me that like could it be competitive for a while

i'm not even guaranteeing a finish for better be if i can see some ways that smith can cause some problems but i just feel like in the end, I really want to be clear about this because even Breadman Edwards was talking about this this week, that people don't give enough credit to the scientific boxing of Better Beef. He finds openings. He actually creates traps on the forefoot, but nevertheless, the amount of physical intimidation and pressure he puts on guys, it is overwhelming and the record speaks to it. And I do think that will be the difference maker in the end. I caught up with him on Morning Combat a couple weeks back. We're going to get to that in a second.

But, Luke, there was some news this week that has caused some level of controversy here, really spurred on by Eddie Hearn, the promoter of Callum Smith. And it all goes back to a weird VADA result that Better Beave had during training camp back in December. Mikey, can we show the tweet of the results this is uh aggregated by michael benson uh the statement from archer better beef reads like this it has come to my attention that calum smith intends to disseminate misleading

information about my vada testing for this fight let me be clear i'm a clean athlete i've never tested positive for a banned substance throughout my career. Any attempt to imply otherwise through innuendo or suggestion is slanderous and libelous. This conduct is beyond acceptable trash talk. Callum is already searching for excuses, looking for a way out. See you on Saturday. And I believe those quotes were taken from a story from Kevin Aioli, who was big on breaking sort of the news of this. You got Eddie Hearn in interview saying, well interviews saying well look you know is this guy as clean as he says he is what's going on with this so look it was it wasn't that he popped it was an adverse finding what does that really mean no not even an adverse it was atypical atypical so what so what's the difference between atypical and i failed the test uh basically that there is a uh a range where um you're looking at someone's levels for whatever it is that they're measuring.

And there's a range where you can sort of consider this normal. And then, you know, usually when someone pops, by the way, it's not barely. They usually pop by a fairly significant margin depending on what they're measuring. And this one was an elevated level, but not necessarily in the territory that you could affirmatively conclude that this was from performance enhancement. In other words, there is a natural explanation, at least possible, that could explain why he did that. You would need further testing, and by the way, they did some more testing, and then the numbers went back down. So the basic answer is, could this be a case where performance-enhancing drugs are involved? It is possible, but the likelier explanation, and this is why they have these different categories,

is that it is more likely to be a natural, albeit unusual fluctuation, or perhaps a better way to look at it might be it is a unusual fluctuation, but they don't have enough corroborating evidence to affirmatively conclude that this came from a performance enhancing drug that he somehow ingested it. There is a natural explanation by contrast. If you see someone take anabolic steroids and then they take a test, the numbers will be so fucking high that it's only, only quite literally pharmaceutically possible to get that place.

He is not there he is much more inside the range that is actually possible under natural circumstances as i said though albeit unusual interesting stuff right there so i caught up with better be a couple weeks back very good interview because i'd never talked to him before and i got to see that wit and that charm he looks like such a scary dude but luke speaks four languages kind of an international man of mystery. He talked at length about his friendship with GSP, which has been a big part of him becoming a combat icon here in greater Montreal.

Yeah. What'd you say? And Kadyrov. Yeah, that too, Luke. Let's hear from Artur talking about this Callum Smith matchup and what he sees as a challenge on the other side. So let's talk about this Callum Smith matchup and what he sees as a challenge on the other side. So let's talk about this matchup. What about Callum Smith makes him

such a tough challenge that you expect on January 13th? You know, if Callum Smith is a good challenge for me, like he was he were like

category lower. he was champion there, you know and like if talk about my old past opponents too I never say like this guy easy for me or this guy easy for me, you know I respect them for everyone

for all of them in past and in the future. But for fight, I try to keep with me everything, anything with me to beat this guy. Sure. I love that guy's broken English. He does understand what I'm saying there, Luke. I helped him through it, but he's got some charm. I also asked him about the age. He will be 39 at the end of this month.

Let's hear how he's had to adjust his game. You're 38 years old, Artur, but you still look really young. Have you had to adapt your game with age or change your style at all now that you're getting older? You know i have condition coach my condition coach and the boxing coach like and i ask them always like during the camp you can you can ask them too and i ask them how do you how do you think we did today good job but is i do this i doing this better than last five years or now is better they tell me yes you this better than last five years or now is better? They tell me, yes, you're better than last five years ago. They tell me that.

But I think they lie to me a little bit. But I'm good, you know. But I'm good. I feel good. I have my feeling for confidence, you know. And when they tell me that you you better than five years ago, but if they, even they like a little bit, you know, a little bit, if they, even they lie a little bit,

but 80% it's true, you know? 80% is still pretty awesome here. And look, he's always going to have that power to bail himself out, which will probably make every fight from here on out be super fun, but Smith, a tough test. Imagine B-Ball in the spring. I said, do you want that fight?

He was like, look, Vodzik wanted a unification fight. I signed for it. Joe Smith wanted a unification fight. I signed for it. That answers your question. So he's ready, Luke, but what's interesting is what he told me is, look, that's one of the biggest fights you can make this year bevol versus uh but i hope we see it but he told me luke although he doesn't think he can move up to heavyweight to rematch usic from the amateurs

he is after bevol ready to move up to cruiserweight and try his craft there how do you think his chances would be cruiserweight is a shit division so probably at least at least decent probably at least decent yeah we'll see we'll see how much longer he wants to keep at it uh better be versus smith this saturday 10 p.m eastern on the plus over there at espn very well very very fight you gotta see you gotta see that so let's keep it going luke we also have one fight night 18 this evening going on there in asia ray flores there's not much to say about this yeah what should we say about it so here's the deal people want us to do more one content and we want to do more one content i don't know that this is the best car to really kick that

off um there are a fair number of muay thai kickboxing belts in there which doesn't say you shouldn't watch or that there isn't anything of value. But there is not the main event is a MMA bout. And this dude, Shamil Gasanov, is an interesting kind of up and coming guy. But at the same time, there's no MMA title on the line. This is really not much of an MMA product, which doesn't mean we can't cover it. But this is truly a hardcore fans delight. And I mean, hardcore of the hardcore, very few, even hardcore fans are going to watch this kind of thing. I think the bigger news BC to me is the two dates that UFC,

excuse me, that one announced they want to bring a couple of us shows here. Also they're trotting out 48 year old Akiyama in a weird ass bout where it's like boxing MMA and then kickboxing rules. Like what the fuck are they doing anyway? But that aside, the two dates in the United States to me is a little bit more interesting but yes there is one fight night 18 coming up so all right so to recap the news that that we touched briefly on on wednesday one made their u.s debut in 2023 in denver demetrius johnson in the main event a deep card with all the stars on it they're going to be back september 6th

also in denver this time at Ball Arena. What the hell is Ball Arena, Luke? Is that McNichols? What is that? So I think the first bank arena is no more. The one in Broomfield, you mean? Yeah, I believe it's no more. And so they're going to a new one.

I don't know what the seating is on that one. Pepsi Center was 20K plus. That's where Jones fought Rampage. I went to that fight but um yeah it'll be interesting to see what they can pull and then november 8th state farm arena in atlanta will be one fight that's a big one 28 that's where the hawks play so that you can get 20 000 plus in that arena i'd be very curious to see what they do at the gate for these shows very curious very interested to see now amazon luke and the streaming wars has won championship has p uh sorry pbc so that's that's uh you know what's interesting about one is uh

it's like i don't know i don't know what to make of it and we'll see what happens with pbc as well we see where it's like okay it must be great to be getting tech money and to be on a platform this big it's great but it doesn't look to me like Amazon does a ton of advertising on behalf of the various entities that are being shown on there. It seems like that's the responsibility that the promoter has themselves, which to an extent makes sense. But it does make the job difficult for them to reach this market in the way that they're trying to do. We'll see. If they're into gimmicksicks and we know they are when i interviewed shotry on my podcast at cbs sports in 2018 luke he told me he trains every day and has so for 30 years what about shotry he's such a fucking liar who gives a

shit what he has to say wow wow what about shotry versus the winner of season two of uh the celebrity apprentice one championship edition it could even be in grappling would you be into that no no no all right sorry you're like i like one i just want less shotry please all right i don't want less shotry i just want less of him talking just stop talking you know people say that about me on this show too final note from combat sports i texted this to you yesterday and i'm itching and i want you to tell me if i should be excited or not bob arum of top rank gave an interview with manuka kopian of the of boxing scene one of the finest armenian american journalists we have luke

yeah you want to blow him i can't support a friend i mean every friend you're like broke back you know you and you want to blow him and then you want to blow Brenno Kimono. Those are the two guys you're desperate. Neither is true. Not a chance. So here's what Arum said, Luke. He gave Tank Davis his flowers, calling him one of the best fighters in the world, but said, I'm willing to match three of my fighters against him

in a two-network super fight pay-per-view. Shakur Stevenson, Vasily Lomachenko, or Teofilo Lopez Jr. He's Bob Arum. Now, look, 92-year-old, 93-year-old Bob Arum, notwithstanding, says, I believe my guys, all three of them, would win. But the specific quote that popped me was he said, wait and see, I believe there will be an offer this summer in Saudi Arabia after Ramadan that would make a fight like this happen. So look up to this

point outside of that Jake Paul one-off, all the boxing in Saudi has been heavyweight focused for the most part, but it has brought people from opposite lines together for better or worse. Saudi is the bridge that is making these big fights happen what we know about the business landscape right now is it possible that we could get like tank loma tank teo this summer pbc amazon and espn plus coming together with saudi money backing up the brink struck like dude this is getting me fired the hell up yeah i mean i boy you look but i don't you love the saudi government you're like dude bone saw those journalists bro bone saw i mean just cut them to pieces um the sheik does follow me luke and i follow him back all right

i followed him back too he does a lot of promoting he followed me as well um but i would say yes the answer is probably yes all the way small. Also, small note about that. Tank Davis, remember, converted to Islam recently. Yes. Probably would help his chances to be an attraction over there in that part of the world. But on top of that, his tremendous boxing and star power. So, yeah, I actually do think. I do think they're going to branch.

I mean, heavyweight was their test case. You know, they've sort of been inching their way in. And I definitely feel like you're going to see a smaller weight fighter under saudi auspices take place over there bone saw or not you know okay so luke while it's super exciting that we're going to get fury usic maybe even twice that we're probably going to get the winner of aj and inganu against the winner maybe the losers will face up look heavyweight has a chance to give us everything if you're telling me in and around this 140 division where all of the young stars in the sport live if we actually realistically across networks could put them together in saudi i'm talking about the haney's the garcia ryan garcia's the shakur's

the teo fimo's the tank davis's luke this is everything that you would want to push the sport forward right like everything you would want outside of killing journalists i mean outside of outside of bone sawing journalists yes this was in fact a great idea and a great a great i should say a great possibility but again lots of ways this could get tripped up it's boxing let's let's be patient we haven't seen al hayman in the pbc outside of andy ruiz fighting anthony joshua in the rematch we haven't seen a hayman in the pbc outside of andy ruiz fighting anthony joshua in the rematch we haven't seen a pbc fighter go over there oh no we've seen wilder so maybe maybe it can happen there we go maybe i'm wrong though luke but luckily we have a segment every

friday to prove that morning combat at gmail.com is your email address to send in when you've been listening to the show and something we said just pissed you off you better bring receipts and if you're going to roast us you better be right this one's called dead wrong talking oh luke the headline of our first dead wrong is appy comes for the jugular is he going to clap back at us or jp What do you think? He's probably just going to murder somebody in his basement. Yeah. One of his students after coitus Luke, here's what David, David Appleton says.

Hi guys. A few dead wrongs this week during last week's fan subs. You said that a donk had his average Joe t-shirt on back to front. That's dead wrong. There are two shirts on sale by RJ titty fiddler with, with the same picture, one on the front one on the back hey luke know your website right i guess i don't i guess i don't yeah i'll take the l okay appy dead wrong number two while i agree with luke refusing brian's use of the word irregardless don't forget

appy's an english teacher luke i take issue with him calling it a grammar problem this is a vocabulary issue and nothing to do with addiction issue yes it's not a grammar problem this is a vocabulary issue and nothing to do with it's addiction issue yes it's not a grammar issue per se that's right i'll take that given that luke said number third while running down his list for friday he should probably go back to his grammar class wow happy all right yes i have and finally here bc keeps saying that there is a feud between jay paquette and me. This is dead wrong. A feud implies that both parties actually give a shit.

For some reason, I am living rent free and poor Mr. Paquette's head, and he is sending obsessive fan subs about me every week. I wish him well. And we'll just one. We'll just say that one day the truth about JP will come out. He knows what I mean. Thank you. good sirs. Have a lovely weekend.

It's Appy. Luke, what do you surmise? This is going to end in murder-suicide. This is, I don't know on which end. You know what I mean? I don't know who's doing the murdering and who's doing the suiciding. You went from Valero to Benoit to Appleton. Is that what you're saying, Luke?

I'm not saying him per se but somehow in this equation there's going to be a murder suicide it's going to be not great. I believe that's it are those all the dead wrongs Mike? We did pretty good this week if that's true that's it? Alright. Yeah that's it. Wow look at that Alright send your gripe to morningcombat at gmail.com

Luke this is a pretty oh Daz had one for your live chat, Luke, but Mikey claims that doesn't count if they try to dead wrong your live chat because it's, you know. It does count, but just not for MK, yeah. Is it heavy politics

still, Luke, the live chat? I mean, it's a little bit of politics. I'm trying to actually have a little bit of less these days. Yesterday was a little bit more than normal, but in general I would say the last few months I turned away from it a little bit of that less these days um yesterday was a little bit more than normal but in general i would say the last few months i turned away from it a little bit it just have you considered on your channel a separate politics only show no i don't have i mean i'm i'm mostly disgusted by our politics these days and our politics is stupid in america as well

it's not a very informed kind of conflict. It's really bad. So no, I don't have much interest in that. All right. Well, morningcombat.gmail.com. I will ask you a question. I will ask you a question. So I don't know how to do it, but one thing I would like to do, if I can,

is I would like to shine a light on the DC-based, not combat sports community, but the actual guys in the trenches getting ready to fight. I would like, and they kind of invited me, but I would like to go down to the Headbangers gym because it's been kind of changed a lot. And again, I've been invited there a couple times and I just haven't taken them up on it,

but I think I need to go down who, Barry? To go down there. Barry once, and then Scooter Davis actually hit me up over the break and asked me to come down. And I think I should do it. I think I would like to tell the story while I'm here of who in my city were the guys who were battling for the city inside of combat sports. I'm just not sure how to tell it. You know what I mean?

I've actually never done it before. I don't really know how to do that. Sounds like a budding co-production between you and Danny Segurja. Segurja. There is no H in there or J, but I don't know. I'm looking for some ideas. I don't really know how to storyboard it. I don't know.

I'm just kind of putting it out into the universe and see what happens. But it's something that's on my mind that I would like to do this year. I definitely would like to do that. Not just that, by the way, there's MMA gyms as well. But I just feel like that the boxing side is kind of underrepresented here. So, yeah. Do you have any other personal goals for the new year, Luke? First of all, you didn't say shit about my haircut.

And I feel like I have an excellent haircut i wanted to say this one of your first rants on this show i had already cut you off twice in like a two minute span so i couldn't go for a third i was going to cut you off to compliment the hair oh thank you well interestingly news the lady who cut my hair for years who moved away she hit me up she was back in town she was like hey i'm moonlighting at this place for a month do you want a haircut i was like god damn right i want a haircut yeah i went and she hooked it up bro look at this i mean and she did the beard trim and everything what's the price because it's very well done so what's the price so i think you'd still consider this high but this was better so haircut and beard trim and then all the accoutrement with

like you know the back rubbing with the fucking you know oh oh did you machine whatever and then the towel and everything the whole thing was 100 bucks 100 bucks h e question mark look you know what i'm saying no no no uh so uh i'll give them a plug it's uh gents out inside it's on uh l street l street in connecticut um and the northwest side of town go check out gents and uh you know there's a lot of great uh you know uh stylists down there and she hooked it up bro i was super i was so fucking pumped when she told me she was back in town because man i tell you what it's hard to get a haircut in this town for a decent price it's tough it's tough it's hard to get anything in that town besides grief for a decent price luke actually no

grief is expensive too because anything you're buying in that area is expensive and then the service workers are just gonna just no sell the shit out of you luke i mean it's just like why are people in general in dc so angry um they're not but they don't suffer fools gladly that's the issue you want people to suffer fools gladly and they just i'm not i'm not like that's exactly what you do you roll up there like michigan j frog and you're like guys why do they serve peanuts on airplanes and everyone's like get the fuck out loser no one gives a shit you're like wow what a salty bunch we got here i'm like i don't think that's what the story is i think you should move okay that's what i think i do think i should i do think i belong to live near the beach i don't know which beach uh and i don't want to

move to florida because that's going to turn into the land that time forgot as they put down radioactive asphalt but i do want to live near the ocean i think it's better for my mental and physical health to do that so i feel the same way about warmth now that i have a real winter again after two mild ones luke the winter is just kicking me in the uh in the old feel hole you know what i mean i don't know why why what why does winter depression work what am i upset about i don't know but it's dark and it's lonely luke it's dark and hell is hot dmx told you about that in 1998 don't forget that first that first record was so good so good second record was good too i i owned it it was good it was good it wasn't on that level but it was good yeah yeah wow man you what? My when I was in my 20s, my roommate worked at a cell phone store,

so he was able to access everyone in the country that owned a Verizon phone. So we would go through there and find names that could be celebrities. And then we'd call them late at night when we were all messed up, Luke. And we talked to DMX one day. We talked to Pedro Martinez. We talked to Turk Wendell uh it sounds profoundly illegal oh of course it is luke but that's what we did you know what i mean i had this giant orange bong too and then we just called these people up and you know it was it was you know yes it was fun back in the day back in the day were you a big prank caller back in the day before caller we can we can end the show here yeah we're good this is this is the end of the line we've reached it all right mikey does have one more question luke do

you get your haircut the same place as robert craft no no no no i don't work it was orchids of asia something like that was yeah i forget exactly what it's called but uh no no it's gents on uh connecticut and l basically um and mikey claims you're missing out because Florida is the best. Yeah, it's not. It's not. Yeah. Radioactive asphalt. I'm good on that.

Thank you. All right. Enjoy the fights this weekend, folks. Hit us up if you have ideas for OK Bet. Don't forget. 3 p.m. 3 p.m. Dewey Cooper.

3 p.m. Today, Dewey Cooper, the striking coach of one Francis Ngannou. By the way, did you see Eric quickly? Final thing. Eric Nick six post on Instagram about Ngannou blessing him with this like Nelk boy bag that changed his life. That's awesome. Yeah, I hit him up about that. And dude, he's going to get another one

because of the Anthony Joshua fight. Dude, between those two fights, what do you think he's pulling in? I honestly think somewhere between 30 and 40 million, maybe more. Ngannou is going to be rich. Then people say he only made 10 for the for the no that's not true 10 was the baseline i know for a fact he made higher than that no no no that's not true way to way to go way to go frank francis congratulations all right for mikey more mile on the ones and twos there thank you guys for taking for watching us we appreciate that

like and subscribe buy our merch at morning combat dot storestore. All that good stuff. Yeah, that's Luke Thomas. This is your boy BC. Take care of yourselves up here, guys. We're big fans of you. We'll see you later. We'll see you on Monday. Let's do it.