MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC Vegas 9 Recap: Overeem Stops Sakai | Masvidal vs. Diaz 2 | MORNING KOMBAT | Ep. 59

Episode Date: September 8, 2020

On episode 59 of Morning Kombat Luke and Brian recap UFC Vegas 9 as they debate Alistair Overeem's chances at making one last heavyweight title run after scoring a KO win over Augusto Sakai. The boys also discuss the possibility of a Jorge Masvidal - Nate Diaz rematch for the BMF title.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

it is Tuesday let's see, September 8th, 2020. And it is time, donks, for Morning Combat. Hi, everyone. My name is Luke Thomas. I do not have another job. I'm from CBS Sports. And the gentleman on the other side of the screen is also from CBS Sports. He's the conspiracy to my theory. He's the apathy to my self-titled.

It's the one and only Brianrian campbell brian did you even get that last reference uh i might have i might have uh luke welcome back great to see you great to hear from you we are live this week thank you uh by the way shout out to uh to the late boxing judge chuck jampa you had a chuck jampa moment last week chuck we're live let's take us inside the mind of a judge there i don't know if you got that boxing reference but we're back at it uh we're fired up you may be a part of my greater company but we have yet luke to launch if you know what i mean we have yet to really take this thing full time every day all day all right all right it's getting there we're close it's worth pointing out it's worth pointing out how people hit me up after last week's episode being like, Hey, how come you guys

aren't five days a week or whatever this past week? Well, uh, we're taking our time to get going. So I think by the end of this month, we will have a much more robust schedule for you guys to hang your hat on. But for this week and probably next week, it'll be a little bit more to what you've been accustomed to we got to take our time to do this right bc as i'm sure you would it will yeah i mean look let's can we remove that fourth wall luke you you know you do what you did what most people do you get a new job you announce it you make a big splash and the first thing you say to your new employers are hey think about going on vacation next week is that cool with you guys yes i did do that although i've never actually done that before that was a first time for me but i'm taking a short staycation

i'm not really going to go anywhere it's just if i didn't do anything i would have had no vacation this year whatsoever and so my wife was like we have to take at least one week so we're going to take one week but but the week of the charlo doubleheader pay-per-view on Showtime, we are going to be large and in charge and doing a lot of stuff that week, it appears. Yeah, get fired up because that's also Adesanya-Costa fight week. So you're going to be getting a lot of MK in your ear hole, in your eye hole. Luke, you're going to penetrate anywhere else? You can do that because that week we're coming.

All right, we're coming. All right, so as always, please give the video a thumbs up. Hit that subscribe button right there. Lots of reasons to do that. If you want some merch, you can do that as well. Go to store.show.com. We have our own Morning Combat merch now with our own graphics, our own page. It's very, very nice.

You guys have been extremely supportive of that. So please keep that up. The more you buy buy that the more different things we can do with it so keep that in mind and then also if you like to try showtime because by the way why wouldn't you you can go to showtime.com right now you can try it for 30 days for free if you like it you can keep it if not you can pound sand and uh but this one bc it's free gratis up in this piece for morning combat yeah look mk is about to absolutely blow up get on board uh you know help out our people here on showtime and buy that merch by the way it fits so well luke my dad turned 65 over the weekend and uh he was gifted by one of his friends with that black no hood mk sweats sweatshirt. He's already loving it.

I meant to tell you, do you know my dad texted me on Monday? No. Ready? He goes, where can I watch your new show? All right. All right. It's 3 a.m. Rob Thomas, no longer lonely.

I love this. I was like, well, that's progress. I mean, that's progress. All right, Luke, you have that brother, the former restaurant owner to what's that guy's name? Matt. Full disclosure ahead of your birthday. I slid into Maddie's Instagram DMs, was trying to full on bin Laden. You was trying to Sodom your Hussein and, you know and get some old school Thomas family gold.

That guy straight up ghosted me. Yeah, that sounds exactly like my brother. If we were Uday and Kuse, which one would you be? I don't get that reference. Is it a Lyle and Eric thing? No, Saddam's two fail sons, Uday and Kuse. Okay, thank you. Sorry, I'm not as world cultured as you.

I didn't grow up in Doha, all right? Thank can tell uh all right well that in mind let's get this party started a lot to react to from the weekend a uh a ufc show that almost didn't happen but more than just that however we start there now we're not going to focus on the covid protocol for that because that's not what i want to focus on we're're going to focus in on, instead, the heavyweight main event. Alistair Overeem getting a win over a top 10 ranked contender in Augusto Sakai. And he had to kind of earn it, BC. First couple of rounds, Sakai, very patient. This fight ended up being kind of sneaky good.

But in the end, Overeem gets the win with a fifth round. TK Go absolutely vicious. ground and pound on top. Okay. First question before we get to some of the larger implications, is this the kind of win that tells you he is actually capable of another title run? It is. It is Luke. 100%.

This is four wins out of his last five fights. I know right now the heavyweight division is deeper than it's been in a while. It's a little bit sexy at the moment. Yet at that same time, you can be older. You can reinvent yourself. You're really always two to three good wins from getting right back in there. Well, he's got four wins in five fights. And, oh, by the way, that fifth fight was that knockout loss to Rosenstruck

in which he was pretty much winning for four and three-quarter rounds. 40 years old he is a man come after him but I did talk to him last week and I like his perspective he knows he's quote too old for this game now or so he says so he's in the midst of what he's calling this last run going all in he knows the mistakes he made against Stipe four years ago and his only UFC title shot he knows the you know the the hit and miss of his initial run in UFC when he came in with big fanfare walked through Brock Lesnar and then started kind of getting knocked out by people he shouldn't have in fights where he was up big you remember Travis Brown fights like that well look he's uh he's reinvented himself a few times and I really like this version of who he is

right now luke he can still be the destroyer if he needs to be the demolition man whatever you want to call him and he can put you away with knees just like he did back in the day but he's so much of a smarter fighter now a calculated fighter i absolutely loved what he did in this five round fight knowing sakai had never gone past three knowing he may have to give up the opening rounds they were very close I did have it two to nothing Sakai but he knew that it was going to change if he could figure out an opening which he did with his takedowns in his ground game and you mentioned it absolutely vicious ground and pound Luke I love victories like this because it felt a little bit like natural selection

sakai was unbeaten in the ufc he showed us a little flashes of some good stuff i thought it was a little overrated coming in he had some split decision wins love handles flying all over not going to hold that against him but he's going in the deep end of the pool and over him dragged him there and it wasn't pretty and it hurt getting there and he gutted out a damn win yes get him right up into another big fight he told me before this fight he's one or two wins at most away from a title shot you could certainly argue against that given the names hovering around the situation which includes john jones's parachuting in but god damn it i don't even know if i'm allowed to say that luke i don't even say that word in my house this felt good never been an oveream super fan but love and respect how he

gutted this thing out and he had to um finish sakai this wasn't the ref jumping in too early he had to beat beat the uh beat the youth out of him beat the life out of him and this is what you have to do at this level and it was hard not to come out of that uh happy to see the veteran pull that off you know over him's resume which we'll talk about the implications of in just a second but if you just look at it it's filled with plenty of blemishes double digit losses i suspect if he fought for a little bit longer he might even reach 20 losses he'd probably reach a lot more wins but i'm just saying you know he has been through the ringer on this one and he has had a lot of setbacks there's a lot more wins. But I'm just saying, you know, he has been through the ringer on this one, and he has had a lot of setbacks.

There's a lot of guys he beat up front that when he had rematches with, he lost and he lost badly, like Sergey Karatov. It's a thing that's happened to him kind of over and over again. And so it's funny, like, how has he managed this much success? He just refuses to quit. He continues to just press forward. But the reason why you can press forward is not just sheer force of will, it's reinvention. It is constant reinvention. Here is the point

about Overeem. For a long time, he was a big, heavy, striking kind of inside fighter, both in kickboxing and to an extent in MMA. And now he is so much more than that. He can fight on the outside. He does have a good clinch when you need it especially as you saw in this fight from a defensive standpoint he would just kind of let Sakai not let him but he was not doing a whole lot early to disrupt what Sakai was doing in the clinch and he just kind of rolled with it there it was a very comfortable space for him and then eventually as you noted he got takedowns he had good ground to pound folks have always told me I remember my first year ever training, someone told me like, oh, Alistair Overeem is not a black belt in jujitsu, but he has a black belt guillotine,

right? He's always had a ridiculously good guillotine. This guy has a million ways to win. And if you're smart and you're determined in the ways that he is, and you have constantly added skills through your 30s and found the right weight class, dude, you can do pretty impressive things. So to me, it's like, listen, you've got Stipe up there, he's got a loss to him. You've got Francis up there, he's got a loss to him.

You've got Curtis up there, he's got a loss to him. And all three of those guys beat him by way of stoppage. I'm going to be skeptical that he can beat those guys. But in beating Sakai the way that he did he has earned the right for another step up the ladder and he's right if he beats one of those guys some kind of rematch with any of those three depending on how the circumstances shake out is probably going to be in order or he could fight Derek Lewis or who the hell knows I'm just pointing out is he is he the question was is he capable of another title run, is he going to be the best guy in that division?

Yes, of course he is. He is very much alive and well, although he understands and sees the exit door. Now BC, it gets to the second part of our question. Let's assume he goes in that title run and he finds someone at the top of that division again, and he gets another setback. At that point, let's say he calls it a day. These are all a lot of big ifs, but let's pause he goes in that title run and he finds someone at the top of that division again and he gets another setback at that point let's say he calls it a day these are all a lot of big ifs but let's posit that is he the best fighter to never win a UFC title he's been a a sneaky out in that debate right we always talk about that Dan Henderson has worn that crown for a long time especially after Bisping finally got it I know Faber's lingering but he did win the wec title and you know we got everybody from joe benavides to whoever is your favorite at the moment in that discussion i always forget to include over him in that but again go back and look at his freaking resume yeah he's got 16 losses but he's had 66 pro fights in just

about every organization that mattered won titles titles with Strikeforce and Dream, fought everybody at Pride, was an absolute warrior, has that whole kickboxing chapter to his career as well. Yeah, he might be there because he has fought everybody. You see a lot of knockout losses, and Luke, you remember a lot of those. They are vicious.

I mean, just the Rosenstruik struke and the inganu losses together are two of the most brutal we've seen in this modern era but it's not just his ability to reinvent himself it's almost a freak-like ability to come back from those type of losses not have them ruin his career he doesn't get complacent he's loving his new run right now with team elevation in denver couldn't stop putting them over in terms of the uh the the youth he's feeling in there learning new skills rounding out his game he might be in contention there uh dan henderson won a strike force title as well never got to the top at ufc i think i'd put him right behind hendo luke yeah he's either there i mean there's a lot of interesting names you could put on that list you will rom Romero's on that list. I'd put Joseph Benavidez on that list. There's a few you could certainly point to. I would say in terms of

heavyweights, he is easily the best heavyweight to never wear a UFC crown, at least to this point, which is kind of interesting, right? He's beaten five different UFC heavyweight champs. And if you count Vitor Belfort, a light heavyweight champ as well. So he has six wins over UFC champions. Now, not when they were champions, obviously, but at certain points in his career. To me, it tells me a couple of things. One, he is certainly on par with those guys in terms of a talent level. Two, we kind of fetishize a little bit, like having the UFC title, like it's this be-all, end-all demarcation of greatness.

And it certainly is an important marker of success but it's not the only one remember this guy was a dream strike force and k1 champion simultaneously do i weigh that more than just grabbing a ufc interim heavyweight title or even winning it and then losing it right back to back yeah i guess i'll say it out loud i kind of do and plus he was a strike force champion granted there was a bit of an absentee moment there but he was a strike force champion when strikeforce had a very good heavyweight division. So to me, all of these— And lacks drug testing, Luke, and lacks drug testing.

I mean, these things are so—these arguments are so ridiculous to me. People were trying to give this to me on Saturday night when I said— People just can't decide what their arguments are anymore. So the argument is, oh, USADA's here. Everyone's going to have to get off stuff, and you're going to watch their performance decline. Oh, we know Overeem's been on stuff. Let's watch his performance decline.

And it didn't. Oh, I had someone tweet me saying he's been taking HGH for all this time. Well, which is it, folks? Does it confer lasting benefit to the kind where you can be just as good or irrelevant as you ever have been? Or is it the case where you can be just as good or irrelevant as you ever have been? Or is it the case where once you get off of it, there is a precipitous decline and change in everything else in body composition? You have to decide how much it matters and what is the time horizon. And the amount of confused arguments that people send me about this, they don't even realize that they're so contradictory. We have to go down the road.

Okay, all right. I'm just pointing out, I don't give a fuck about that stuff because I don't think it matters at all. We don't have to go down the road. Okay, all right. I'm just pointing out, I don't give a fuck about that stuff. I don't think it matters at all. We don't have to go down there, Luke Fauci, okay? We can make a joke and move on, all right? I'm just saying, I'm just saying, what he was able to accomplish at that stage, to me, is pretty impressive across two sports.

Plus, if you look at how he was fighting at that K1 time, I alluded to it previously, it was a lot of, lot of hardcore inside fighting, and now he's doing something totally different. And so my only point being is, I put him on par with some of the best top 10 heavyweights, maybe inside the top 10 of all time. I don't want to say that if he never wins the title,

we can't count that against him. You kind of have to, but you cannot lose sight of all of the other accolades, BC, he's put together that to me mean just as much, and in some cases, a little bit more. Are you crushing your bills? Defeating your monthly payments? Sounds like you're at the top of your financial game. Rise to it with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card, the credit card that rewards your good financial game. Rise to it with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card,

the credit card that rewards your good financial habits. Earn points for paying your credit card bill in full and on time every month. Level up from bill payer to reward slayer. Terms and conditions apply. Two quick points on him. I thought it was interesting that he told me his best win, the win that he covets the most, was the Brock Lesnar win. Now, I get it from a fanfare sense, right?

Him stepping up to that UFC level was a big deal, but that was a somewhat diminished Brock. He had already been knocked out and lost the title. And the second thing, Luke, let's not forget how close he did come. I mean, even outside of the Stipe tap joke, he knocked Miocic down and had and had him on queer street if you will and i know you will luke so uh he was already that close he's still a threat i think he's a better fighter now than he even was four years ago so um he's you know in a better spot to expose

people like sakai can he get over the top against the very super elite and it kind of remains to be seen you nailed derrick le Derek Lewis as a potential right opponent for his next fight considering he's lost to everybody else but you saw Twitter's reaction Saturday night how about Overeem's former teammate John Jones how about that fight how about that as a proper introduction to the heavyweight division I love it I love that one too let me just add one more thing we have sort of maligned heavyweight for a long time in MMA as like sort of the the poor man's division the sick man of MMA in saying that all the other divisions were much much better and I think now you know Overeem had a long time at light heavyweight now he's been in heavyweight

for a good long while at this point but he certainly had some success and started his career out at light heavyweight and you know we've seen a couple other guys go from light heavyweight to heavyweight and not have quite the success a couple other guys go from light heavyweight to heavyweight and not have quite the success that we thought I'm not here to declare that like everything we thought about heavyweight was wrong but I do think we probably want to amend the idea that it's some kind of really behind the times behind the curve kind of division it's not for all the reasons that we mentioned the best athletes certainly in this, get recruited for NBA or NFL or something along those lines when they're that size. And I think that still holds true.

But I also think that we went too far, BC, in overselling just how bad it was. It's actually a pretty powerful division. You blame Tim Sylvia for that? Another guy who had size and will and made something of it. I don't know. I'm not sure what to say about that. There was a time when, you know, when Sylvia was beating the Gan McGee's of the world,

it wasn't necessarily the best division. It probably deserved some, some slander, but it's, I mean, it's so different now. And last thing I'll say about this, this is why I think where you and I come down on Overeem, you and I are both, I think of the position where I'm not sure his ceiling has changed but this idea that the bottom has dropped out just because he's aged and had a few losses that is so not true he is very very capable of beating anybody in that division on the right night and so I'm curious to see what he can do

with it uh one more note BC back to you Michelle Pereira had a nice win slapping donks out there I wouldn't call it a stockton slap i'm not sure where maybe it's the sao paulo slap i'm not sure where he's from in brazil but this was a guy who you absolutely detested and now you've come around to my way of thinking on this what happened i haven't fully reached around if you will luke but i will say i was very impressed uh look it was the last fight is with usc deal so there was pressure on him to put away what had gone wrong the last two fights right he gassed out against tristan connelly and then he had that weird dq loss to diego sanchez in which he was

winning you know my issues he's a damn circus clown because he was doing a lot of those theatrics not in the mindset of trying to win. Even before this fight started, dude, he did like break into electric boogaloo for five minutes during his ring intro. Like, that's gas you're going to need. Now to his credit, and he did sort of shout it out afterwards, like if you could only see how hard I trained. Luke, he was in sick shape for this fight.

I mean, he is a freaking, I mean, a machine physically, and he did have the stamina to go three hard rounds in there against a tough out. And he made it look like he was fighting an amateur. I'm going to give him a lot of credit save for that second round where he had that two minute stretch of just knucklehead cap aware of kick showtime kicks, uh, flipping off the ceiling for, you know, it was video game fighting. It was button mashing time. Outside of that, I saw a guy who actually could become a legit title contender because of just the outlandish athleticism, great timing,

okay, the slaps, okay, the trash talking. Secretly, I do love that stuff. But again, if you're angling that toward winning, right? When Nate Diaz double flips off Cerrone, it's to get in his head. If you're angling that stuff toward winning the fight, I'm going to back you. And this was a much needed performance

and this was even better than I thought he could have done, Luke. I mean, he absolutely dominated that Russian fella. Imadayev, yes, I'm very, very glad to hear that you agree you were wrong before okay we move on to point number two hold on don't move on i don't care that jay's in his turbine engine all upset that no escape never got a record deal uh luke do you see title contender in that body okay it is a one tender yes title winner he doesn't have enough discipline the way he fights to win but he might

be the best athlete in all of ufc but do you back dc that he's got it he's got to clean it up a little bit he but yes but he won't and we know that he won't so there's no point in like he is good enough on the right night to beat a ranked guy but i don't know he's good enough to put a bunch of ranked wins together in a disciplined kind of campaign to claim well i want you to put him on the couch right now because am Hibas, for example, his Brazilian country woman, she's out of control in interviews, but in the cage, man,

she puts that crap together and goes in there to take you out. What's going on in that bro-seph's brain? That's what I can't really figure out. A question for a different time. All right, point two. How about this time? You ain't got no jobs, bro.

Point number two, Jay. You are free to go to the next slide. Brock Lesnar teasing a comeback, or at least reports that he is a free agent anyway. Nick Diaz and his manager outright teasing some kind of a comeback in 2021 in the welterweight division, so much so putting out a video where he had practiced a weight cut

and looked to be in fantastic shape. All right, BC, we go back to you. Flat out, do we care about Brock Lesnar and or Nick Diaz in MMA in 2020? We do. Stop acting like there's any chance we don't. Do we care about them in any form of legitimate fight? No, that's the key distinction. And when this Brock Lesnar WWE free agent news came out, you know, was I playing the clickbait game to a degree?

Yes. I also think it's an interesting conversation. I wrote the damn story. I put out the podcast with Rashad Evans where we went from 45 minutes saying, what fights make sense business-wise? What do you think? Could he go to Bellator MMA and have a Fedor-like run? Yes, all of the above if he wants to.

That's what we don't really know. Yes, he's 43, but we know heavyweights age late. He doesn't have a ton of damage on him. Yeah, he'd have to sit out six months for USADA and prove that that 2016 win over Mark Hunt can be done without horse steroids pumped into your testicles

before the fight. But Luke, overall when somebody matters this much on a business level, yeah, of course it matters. If he came in and was Jon Jones's introduction to heavyweight, it's a massive pay-per-view, whether they did it in 2012 or they do it in 2021 and stop acting like it isn't. And look, again, he doesn't comment publicly, Brock. He doesn't go social media. He works out on a damn farm in Canada somewhere. He don't care about your handle or your followers. I don't know if he actually wants to fight, but could you

imagine as Scott Coker, Bellator MMA CEO tweeted out or told Ariel or whatever, imagine him going to Bellator for stupid money and fighting freaking Brock. I mean, I'm fighting Fedor, excuse me, and in fun circus fights. There are so many fun circus fights. How about Anderson Silva against him? That'd be a fun circus fight. I'd love to do that kind of crap. I don't want Brock against DC for the belt like they were trying to do a couple years ago when it made no sense on 86 levels. But yes, we should care. He's the rare celebrity fighter who matters because he can actually compete in the right matchup. Nick Diaz is a little bit different.

Look, all the public stuff we've seen, Luke, and I'll throw it back at you, I'm a little bit nervous physically and mentally where he's at. And I know we've said that his whole career, but obviously this window with this much time off, I don't know, man. I mean, you know, if you're telling me he's going to go in there for one more fight and it'll be some fun BMFf thing okay cool but i'm a little bit nervous about his

well-being yeah no one has a it's funny when brock lesnar takes time off and comes back fans are very quick to point out what i would call very fair and relevant factors of his reemergence. You know, he's not been doing full-on MMA training during this time. He beat Mark Hunt, but there was a USADA violation. Before that, you know, he had bad losses, as you indicated, to, let's say, Alistair Overeem, but there were some other ones as well. You know, they sort of point out the things that you are allowed to say as fair, legitimate, noteworthy criticisms. And then when you ask them, ask them what about Nick Diaz

coming back the fan base gets collective amnesia about all the different factors that might make you want to put a bit of a limit on your expectations for him and not just amnesia about what has happened but you know the sort of romanticism even in the present like after the BMF fight with Jorge that was a fight Jorge was winning easily. Like it was, there was no controversy there at all. Jorge was clearly better than Nate Diaz, at least on that night. And that is not the expectation,

that is not the conclusion you would come away with. The Diaz brothers have this ability to hypnotize huge swaths of the fan base. And God bless them. They should be getting paid for it. But to hypnotize them, to make them forget about all these other things. This is not George St. Pierre handing back the title so Robbie Lawler and Johnny Hendricks can fight for it. And he can go and train, you know, not like he's in camp, but sort of as a lifestyle.

Take four years off and come back and go up and fight Michael Bisping up at middleweight where you know yes maybe even had an injury during that time but he was basically still incredibly active and only walked away because he was burned out with the rigors of being a champion Nick Diaz if you had been paying attention to his social media at all was not doing anything like them that's changed more recently but this guy was in Vegas night after night after night after night and I'm not here to begrudge him that that's the way he wanted to spend his life it's the way you want to spend his life but you should manage your expectations about what he can reasonably do when he comes back this idea that he's gonna like jump to the front of the pack and beat elite welterweights i that seems to me incredibly foolish. It hasn't competed. I mean, his last big win,

where you could look back and be like, wow, that's really impressive. What was it, BJ Penn? And that was when BJ Penn, beating him mattered, but that's my point. It was when beating him mattered. I do think, to answer the question, if you see very quickly, and I'll throw it back,

yes, clearly there is going to be a market for Lesnar and Diaz. I would just argue, one, probably not what it once was, although still big, especially with the UFC needing to fill out as many events as possible to make sure they get this ESPN money. And then, two, it's going to be highly, highly opponent-dependent on what kind of real interest the fan base is going to have because despite the amnesia that some might have about the Diaz brothers, I think even they realize some of these make a little bit more sense than

others. Hey, remember when a hoist, Gracie came back against Matt Hughes, you know, so many years removed, like generations removed in terms of the evolution of the sport. I'm not saying Nick is facing that,

but I'm saying I would bet my money more on that. We have one more Nick d as a parent and maybe it goes maybe not as disastrously as hoist did where uh matt hughes just sat on him and punched him out like it was uh brock lesnar against that asian guy in m1 or whatever but uh you know i feel like we're gonna see him one more time and that's it so if you want to cash him out against you know bmf style that's great but i think he's more on the competitive level potentially of a clay guida or diego sanchez right now and i just don't think he's stable yeah i'd care of course we would but you know he's not going to come back and reinvent

the wheel too many years too much uh damage and stuff but i just want to double down and say people got to stop acting like they wouldn't care about brock like it's not cm punk here right there is an avenue to victory for a freak athlete who's still showing on TV that he's a freak athlete. I know it's pro wrestling, but there are fun matchups you could potentially make, and I almost wish the stars

would align and he could end up in Bellator and could go the more circus old guy fun route. I think there's so many fun things you can do there, but we'll see what happens. Even then, he beats Fedor. Would you hate to see a brock lesnar versus ryan bader fight i wouldn't i'd be kind of interested in that yeah you can almost talk yourself into believing especially with the potential of lax drug testing that he has a chance in that luke uh all right we go from one diaz brother to the next there are some reports now nothing is confirmed but here for point three Jorge Masvidal and Nate Diaz are apparently looking to run back a fight from UFC 244 of

course when they first fought for the original BMF title now again there are some uh you know some caveats we should put on this again nothing official nothing signed we don't know when blah blah blah but this is the idea they want to go back and do again what they had at UFC 244 which you might recall BC ended a little bit early by virtue of a cut that the doctor then stopped over there in New York maybe you put it in Las Vegas and maybe it gets to keep going which they might if they end up making it okay BC is this the is this the right next move for both Jorge and Nate Diaz? It actually is. It's perfect for both.

And there was a weird reaction to it of people going, oh, I guess this means Jorge is a celebrity fighter now, BMF fighter. He had his one time at the throne against going for the title, and now he's cashing himself out. It's not. Look, he took that fight at last minute. I don't love the way he fought against Usman. It what it is but this is the right let's shine him back up

there's an you know there's a disconnected storyline there the real fight fans know exactly what you said that masvidal was dominating him ds had some moments in the third round but the just bleed faction of the world the casual fan faction they can go back to that first fight and say man if the if the commission and the refs and the doctors didn't take that away from nate who knows what that fight looks like that's not really reality but that's sellable and look for nate you know this and the connor fight are really his two paydays left in terms of massive paydays in terms of fights that actually matter so i think people are wrong on how they view this for jorge and i think people are wrong

on saying that this fight wouldn't matter um look how do you sell big pay-per-view numbers you attract the casuals the casuals care about two crazy guys going in there and they're just gonna freaking fight they're not gonna lay in prey yes there's still a major market for that okay that's called the pay-per-view business so uh this is perfect for that it's perfect for bmf it's just it's it's very big business you shine jorge up you let him get a full camp against a super elite you know hopefully for the title and we'll see what we have there but uh stop complaining about anything connected to this i'm just a little bit nervous where as i look at nick as i mentioned i just

don't think there's anything left in the tank anymore for nate i'm having doubts that he can really win a big fight anymore luke i mean there is scar tissue that i wish you saw and i feel like that thing his face just busts open in any fight um you know that that first mcgregor fight was the mountaintop of his career and and it's been downhill since then. And, you know, I thought maybe a year ago, two years ago, there was still life for him to be a major pay-per-view brand and even a quasi-title contender. But I think he's drifting away into full-on celebrity fighter,

and I wonder how many more times Nate will even want to do this. This argument that Jorge is like, oh, what is he, some kind of celebrity fighter now? He doesn't want to take on the blah, blah, blah challenges of the world. Who are these fucking people? I mean, do you understand at all what you're watching ever at any point in the last one year, five years, 10 years, 15, 20? I mean, what an absurd argument this is. I cannot believe that anyone would make this with a straight face.

Let me see if I can understand this. absurd argument this is. I cannot believe that anyone would make this with a straight face. Let me see if I can understand this. You have an opponent who we just recalled has a fan base that has collective amnesia about all of their shortcomings every time they fight, which is great for you and great for them because it gives you all kinds of fresh life out there for the right kinds of circumstances, which this is. So number one, you have that. Number two, again, I thought Jorge was winning that one walking away, but at the same time, it did not end under what we would call the most ideal or clean circumstances. There is, in that case, unfinished business.

Number three, you're both coming off of losses. So getting right makes sense. You already kind of beat this guy. You didn't really beat him, but you kind of beat him already. You must love your chances. And by the way, you fight this guy, you're going to make a fuck ton of money. Add to that BC that part of what goes into matchmaking is lobbying. Lobbying is a key part of how fights get made. If you are Jorge Masvidal and you fight Leon Edwards versus being Jorge Masvidal and you fight Nate Diaz,

one, you have a much tougher fight than Leon. And two, as it relates to the lobbying part, you're going to have a lot fewer microphones that you have to answer to or cameras to be in front of or whatever, even during a pandemic. If you fight Nate, so many people are going to want to hear what you have to say. And if you are steady beating the drum as you lead up to the weeks and days before fighting Nate, saying, if I win this, I want a title shot. If I win this, I want a title shot. If I win this, whatever the messaging is around title contention,

you are much more likely to get it than just beating somebody that no one even, does anyone except hardcores remember three pieces of soda? That is not why Jorge Masvidal is famous to the casuals it's a big deal inside the bubble it means zero outside the bubble this is the only call for Jorge Masvidal to make and it's a great call for Nate too in the sense that you get a chance at redemption who knows how the second one could go again I thought he lost it but that doesn't mean he'll lose the second one necessarily and again you're gonna have a partner in this equation who's gonna make you a crap ton of money it is absolutely the right call for both fighters if you are managing either of these guys and you say to them you should get the winner of Colby and Tyron or Leon Edwards, that is fucking malpractice.

People, wake up. This is not a hard call to make. Luke, it's promotional malpractice. T-shirts and sweatshirts still available at LukeThomas.com. Thank you. It certainly is. I just can't believe that this is even remotely debatable. This is the easiest no-brainer.

What's the most more unbelievable MMA conspiracy theory that Nate was coming on in that BMF fight or that producer Jay actually dropped Uriah Hall with a spinning kick during Jujutsu practice that time? Remember that story Jay told us? MMA is unpredictable and wild enough that you can never be like, oh, he's got no chance. Never make that mistake.

You will end up eating it eventually when you do it. You're talking about Jay. Jay has no chance. Jay is drying his balls at a public restroom's hand dryer. What I'm pointing out is the argument that Nate was coming on in the third round, it's just amnesia and delusion from a fan base that really likes their fighters and that's fine but that doesn't mean we have to honor it with some kind of you know truth uh veracity or something like that it's jay can you come in for one second i got a really important question that the fans

want to know yes jay were there groupies in your short-lived boy band, No Escape? Like middle school girls? Define groupies. Yeah, you guys blowing each other doesn't count. Oh, wow. Look, it's 2020. Friends can do what they want to each other. Please, wow. Yeah, you know, I'm a firm believer that 15 gets you 20. So, yeah.

All right, thank you. Jay's like, if we blow each other after the show, I guess we can count each other as fans. Okay, wow, speaking of fans, how's that turbine engine treating you, Jay? All right, back to the show. And then some poor kid has to go to the manager at Starbucks and be like, there's three guys blowing each other

in the dude's bathroom. All right, with that in mind, we go to our next topic, Jay. All right. This is actually a bit of a weirder one, BC, because it cuts across both of our lives in different ways. Jamal Herring, who could not brand himself more with the Marine Corps if it was a contest, defended his...

They call him Jamal, just so you know. Jamal. Sorry, I keep calling him Jamal because that's just the bad habit that I have. He defended his WBO junior lightweight title. When I say defended, BC, it's not quite right, is it? Because he was winning against Jonathan Okendo, but then he got headbutted in the fifth, and then by the end of the eighth,

or excuse me, sometime during the eighth round, I think it was the end of the eighth, the ringside physician or excuse me, sometime during the 8th round, I think it was the end of the 8th, the ringside physician was examining him, and he was like, I can't clear you if you can't see, and he says, I can't see, and so they waived the fight. So he wins via disqualification, but Andre Ward and Timothy Bradley let him have it. Twitter let him have it. Social media in general let him have it. So the question is this straight up did he quit

yeah yeah he quit and i know that uh you hate i know that there's a lot of people that are going to be watching this being like you know who's this uh you know honky clown that's never been in the ring no but it's my job to talk about this stuff and um i don't have anything bad to say about jamel herring but i also believe like when did boxing you know become so soft whereas as much as there was like this initial backlash after the fight of did herring quit there was like a double down in response to that of maybe tim bradley and andre ward should apologize don't they understand that herring's a marine he's got two kids with special needs he's coming off of two covid battles and he took this fight and blah, blah, blah.

That's irrelevant to the situation. Jamel Herring's a salt of the earth. One of the best interviews, tough as balls, fighter, semper fi. There's no such thing as a former ex-Marine, whatever you want to say. But how this whole thing went down was wonky. I even think Tony Weeks ruling the headbutt that caused the cut on Jamel Herring as, what was the word he used, Luke? He essentially did it on purpose.

What was the word they used? Oh, intentional disqualification or intentional foul, yeah. Look, I thought that was wonky as well. So here's the deal on this. Okendo was 37. He'd been through the wars he this was his moment this was his last chance this was a title fight against a guy who was taller longer quicker and maybe even more powerful than him in herring we've seen this a million times folks

the less skilled guy sometimes says look my only chance is to get inside and rough up so i'm gonna lead with my head a bit i'm still gonna throw punches but to call this intentional i saw everybody on twitter going they should throw this fight off this guy's obviously leading with his head victor ortiz when he got d when in the floyd mayweather fight he was leading with his head right he jumped in and tried to spear him as a way out this was no different than tim bradley's career evander holyfield's career even bernard hopkins at times was it on the side of dirty in terms of clean and dirty yes but everything tim bradley said and andre ward was a hundred percent spot on hearing was

uncomfortable almost this entire fight except for the knockdown and the whole narrative they were selling was that this was supposed to be a tune-up fight a stay busy look great fight to bang the drum for that carl frampton title fight that we're setting up before the end of 2020 and under that setting i'm sorry herring didn't look that good and yes it looked like he wanted out in that situation i think he benefited from weeks calling it intentional which changes the rules a bit and could lead to what we saw, which was a DQ ending. I don't think Okendo

was over the line trying to be dirty. I think he was edging that line, and there's a long history in boxing of when that happens, and just like Andre Ward said, there are some things you can do when that happens. One, make him not do that by the way that you box and use your jab,

something Herring wasn't doing. Two, follow him back. Look, there's a game within the game in all sports. I play old guy pickup basketball. I almost get in fistfights all the time. Why? Because it gets chippy sometimes. Some guy's pulling down the back of your jersey, he's elbowing you, whatever. Sometimes you got to follow back to gain back respect.

And I'm not here to necessarily doggone herring for not doing that but i'm also saying what ward and bradley said was spot on he responded not well to this from a fighter perspective uh does he have a history where you can't question that well no nobody does you're only as good as your last fight in this moment he didn't do well and the way this fight ended when he went back to the eighth round as i'm sorry okendo was coming on those final two rounds he said doc doc i can't see i don't know what was going on there's blood dripping in his eye i'm sure there was pain and in in all that i'm sure it was a very uncomfortable but what ward and bradley said not what Campbell said, what Ward and Bradley said was spot on.

We've seen true champions fight through that so many different times. He had blood dripping down, but the eye wasn't swollen, it wasn't shut. And he kind of, in some ways, asked out by saying, I can't see. Now, I did think the ring doctor was very overwhelmed. I didn't even think he properly inspected it.

He just heard, I can't see, and he waved it off. And also, if you really read the letter of the ruling on the unified rules, which was in play because this was a title fight, that fight should not have been a DQ. It actually should have gone to the cards. And if Herring would have won, it would have been a technical decision win. And if he would have lost, it would have been a technical draw. That's the ruling because of the intentional

headbutt again i don't think it was intentional you can take points away from him all you want and warn him you can disqualify him as the ref but to nail this as intentional so early that weeks did i feel like it gave herring and out and i felt like he took that out now it was on it was an unfortunate situation luke that he went to the hospital and he was sitting there looking at Twitter and everyone's calling him a quitter and Joe Blow in the basement is calling him a quitter and it seemed to get to him and he was contemplating retirement. I didn't like any of that stuff too. I love me some Jamel Herring.

But good God, Ward and Bradley apologized? No, they were right. It is what it is. There's a game within the game and he lost that game. He may have won the fight, but he lost that game, Luke. If you're going to don everywhere you go as part of your identity, the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor, okay, you have earned that right because you have served and you had it pinned on you,

and it is part of something that has a dramatic effect on your life. As someone who's had the exact same thing, I understand the impulse. And the good side of getting that ego-globin anchor pinned on you is that people will give you a little bit of an early leash. They'll say, oh, he must be upstanding. He must be tough or whatever the circumstances call for to be high character. The other part of that equation, though, is if you are going to use that as a shield, they're going to have high expectations as well. And you cannot use it to hide,

not suggesting that he has been, but for people who might be a little bit questioning whether or not you can criticize somebody who has done so much and been through so much because he has done something so noble, if you're going to have that as part of your identity, then you have to make sure you understand you're going to be measured against the greatness

of the Eagle Globe and Anchor. And clearly he fell short. Look, here is what it means to serve. For folks who may not understand, it doesn't mean you're an angel and it doesn't mean you're Mr. Perfect and it doesn't mean you're never weak. It just means when the moment calls upon you to act in the noblest and most difficult of circumstances, you do.

If he is not able to do that in a boxing fight that goes his way, it's not some betrayal from him against the Marine Corps. That's not what it is. It just tells you the reason I think he went to retirement in his mind, BC, is because I don't know exactly how much he really, really wants it. If you have been trained to give your all, and he has in many ways, if you've been trained, forget about the military side, just the professional athletic side, to really impose your will and not listen to the voices of doubt and pain and suffering and the things that want to drag you down, if you've been accustomed to pushing those away, you're going to get pretty good at it. If you give into it in a certain moment,

yes, I think he had a moment of weakness there. I don't think that that makes him a bad person. I don't even think it makes him a bad boxer. I don't even think that means that they shouldn't make necessarily the Karl Frampton fight. What I think it tells you is, for a guy whose whole life is built around noble character and the perseverance through difficult circumstances, for him to relent like that in the way that he did, and again, I agree,

Okendo was not being disciplined with his head placement, and that couldn't have been easy, and he was skirting the line, and he was doing it in a way that is going to make the referee's job difficult. But when Herring was presented an opportunity to walk away from a difficult circumstance and get the better of it, he did. That tells me that I don't know how strongly he really wants to be doing this,

given what it requires anymore. If he really did, I think he's got everything in here to do that. I just really wonder if that's exactly what he wants. And it's a function of not ability. It's a function of desire. And when the desire goes away, that will affect the ability to bring those character, that high character ability that he has into display. So that's why he went to retirement in my mind,

because he's got some bigger questions he has to ask himself here. Jay wants me to get off of this, but I think it's important. I also think it's important if somebody quit and our job is to report, I don't care what's my fighting record. Get out of here.

It is what it is at the end of the day. And look, by the way, I know Andre Ward, the official scorer for ESPN, had essentially four rounds to four, which seemed generous for Okendo and obviously minus the way i know andre ward the official scorer for espn had it essentially four rounds to four which seemed generous for okendo and obviously minus the two points one for the knockdown loss and one for the uh the headbutt um i thought you know you had to give at least two maybe three of those rounds to okendo and we've been talking about bad judging lately the score cards came out eight to zero for herring on two cards seven to one on the third i don't know how you

can say that those last two rounds you know kendo finally was getting inside and landing as herring was backpedaling look not a great night at the office not gonna hang them over the coals but it is what it is rake them over the coals all right last but not least i'll i'll i'll hang your ass luke all right uh because you hate white people uh no I think they're just fine, but it is rake them over the coals. All right, last but not least, we go to our weekend preview, BC. A lot to get to here on the Bellator and UFC side. UFC, we'll start with very quickly. We've got, let's see, we've got Angela Hill, first black woman, by the way, to ever headline a UFC card.

That's kind of interesting. Taking on Michelle Watterson in a main event that was not necessarily supposed to be the main event, but some other fights fell through and they got elevated. What's on the line here, really? To me, this is a highly interesting fight, BC. And the reason why is because Angela Hill and Michelle Watterson share one common trait aside from the weight class itself. Namely, they're both coming off of losses, but that doesn't really tell the story. Angela Hill is coming off of the Claudia Gedalia loss, a fight I thought she won. And if she had won that, I think it would be four in a row for her. She has never looked better in her career. She's never had more confidence. She has an unending gas tank. She has really turned into

a well-rounded talent. She has come into her own in the last year, year and a half or so. And it's been amazing to watch. And she's had a little bit of time off since that last fight, and this is her chance to get back into that winner's circle that she should have still been in, in my view, after her last contest. So her stock is going this way despite coming off the loss. Michelle Watterson, on the other hand, coming off of two losses in a row, neither of them where she looked particularly great. She had a win in 2019 over Karolina Kovalkevich but to me this was a person who had a lot of promise now granted she's a natural kind of Adam Waite or at least she was for a time maybe not anymore but she was repped by WME she was sort of seen as somebody in that same kind of

vein as like Holly Holm and other fighters UFC could build up to really do special things and she's had a good career, to be clear, but I don't know if she's ever going to fulfill that potential. She's not getting any younger. I love this contest. I favor Hale to win it because you've got two people going in opposite directions for very surprising and unexpected ways. Yeah, Watterson's the old name, A-side or B-side,

depending on where you want to go at this point, to hold the main event up. I love this fight. Look, this fight, wasn't it supposed to be Maheta and Grover, Luke? Yeah. That was the plan, right? And Grover, yes. Elmo's going to be cornering him, yes. Thank you.

Unfortunately, we have to delay and wait for that. There were people going, you know, what the hell's going on here? Is this UFC's worst main event? Well, no, this is better than Calvillo. I even almost like this better than Overeem Sakai on paper and I know that's because women's strawweight always delivers I like to see what this fight could look like over five rounds and for all those things you mentioned it did seem like when Watterson lost to Ioana a couple years back that that was it in

terms of is she ever going to be a legitimate title contender she poured it out she wasn't good enough in that moment still a name name, still can make fun fights. I think the storyline surrounds whether Hill can win this and turn it around from being that busy journey woman to somebody who's figured out how great she can be in her 30s here. By the way, she's also very good on camera as an analyst, Angela Hill, in that first option that ESPN gave her. So that was good to see as well.

So a little bit of somebody who looks like they're coming against somebody they're going. It's at 115. I got a big smile on my face. This is good. Card not good around it. This fight, good. I like it.

We go to Bellator, which has not one but two cards over the weekend. Bellator 245, Bellator 246. Both of these, of course, will be at the Mohegan Sun Arena. BC, a lot of different moving parts here. Leslie Smith is at 245, the card, not the weight, obviously. Ed Ruth is at middleweight on this card, which is kind of interesting. Raymond Daniels, the famous kickboxer, and Kat Zingano is on that card. Phil Davis versus Miyota Machida, too.

On 245, what's your favorite fight on there? Gorilla is coming out there, right? No, that's 246. We'll get to that in a second. What are the ones fight on there? Gorilla is coming out there, right? No, that's 246. 246. We'll get to that in a second. But of the ones I just mentioned. You know, look, I like Machida Davis, too. I'm in on that.

I'm down with that. That's my kind of cup of tea here after their first fight, which was back in, like, 2013. So I'm into here. Austin Vanderford, by the way, Luke, the guy with the worst tattoo of all time, pulled out of this card with COVID. And he also gave it to his wife, PVZ. So pour one out. Pour a little bit of my hemp-infused seltzer, Kalo, out to the Vanderfords over that one, Luke. All right?

But, yeah, look, I like both of these cards. You know, do I want Bellator to make these one spectacular card rather than two consecutive nights? I've argued that in the past. But I like this Machida Davis fight just as much as I like the Saturday night main event for the vacant title. I don't know how much I love the idea of Ed Ruth at middleweight. I don't know what the circumstances are that put him there. And again, sometimes folks will be like, oh, this claim you're making is not true.

No, it's very true. Ask anybody who specializes in NCAA wrestling. Ed Ruth is one one of the top 10 wrestlers irrespective of weight class in collegiate wrestling ever that is how good he was an unbelievably good wrestler but he had a we're gonna put him up there with dan gable who are you gonna put him in that gable dan gable you know dan gable yes he would be considered one of the top 10 of all time kyle sanderson one time kyle dake would be another one uh john smith would be considered one of the top ten of all time. Kale Sanderson? Kale Sanderson would be one of the top ten. Kyle Dake would be another one. John Smith would be another one.

Hold on. Let me get this point out. All I'm pointing out is he has a couple of losses. One to Neiman Gracie in a fantastic fight. Still relatively early in his career. And then he had a setback in his last contest against Yaroslav Amasov. And folks don't know that name for some reason. I don't know what Bellator is doing with him.

He is an amazing welterweight talent. He's undefeated, and he beat Ed Ruth. I'm thinking to myself, why would he not be promoted? He was on the prelims, I think, of the last card he was on. So I don't know what's going on with that. But just suffice to say, I want to see Ed Ruth maximize his potential. I don't know that it's at middleweight, but I'm curious about that. So BC, you brought it up.

246 will be the next night. You've got Juan Archuleta for the bantamweight title against Patsy Mix I great easily easily the best fire of the weekend irrespective of organization number one you got John Fish against Neiman Gracie that's a fun fight Liz Karmouche against Deanna Bennett she's making her Bellator debut at women's flyweight and then Derek Campos is on this card as well why were were you so high on the gorilla fight? No, I was just dropping that in. Look, I'm down for her and Kat Zingano making their Bellator debuts here in much further apart separate weight classes,

one at flyweight, one at featherweight. I did give you a weird face on the Neiman Gracie-John Fitch fight. It has the potential to be interesting, especially if you're a hardcore fan. It also has the potential to look like uh uh you know showtime red shoe diaries in the 90s you know what i'm saying but back to that main event luke um look i'm really excited archuleta bangs but obviously i want to find out how great patchy mix can be he's had spectacular submission victories in bellator and it feels like they're matching him quick but for a reason here this is a good ass fight for the vacant feather title correct i love that yes no vacant bantam vacant because it was supposed

to be uh horiguchi but that whole thing blew up so here's what i would say this is on paper now in the end we don't know if it's going to deliver but on paper this is the best fight of the weekend by a country mile juan archuleta is not a devastating finisher, but he has tons of experience and he really kind of knows how to manage around to his strengths, which are sort of in and out movement, a lot of circling on the outside, not necessarily the most exciting at all times, but very difficult to beat. Patchy Mix is one of these guys who is just an absolute gator in terms of grabbing onto an opponent and holding on with submissions.

Unbelievable, full of confidence. He can strike himself, by the way. He's pretty good in that. So you've got this guy who's all aggressive, all finishing, who doesn't have as much experience as the guy who's somewhat of the opposite. Really going to be interesting to see who can impose their will there.

I love this fight. I love everything about it, and I sort of can't wait to see it. Was Gorilla a Marine, Luke? She was. Gorilla was a man that's right all right there we go have you ever have you ever talked shop with her have you ever dropped a little semper fi on top of her i have we've done that many times as a matter of fact i saw her uh no i didn't see her in dc but the last time i saw her what was that i can't remember but yeah we talked about it a few times do you think you could have passed her guard i think you're weird and i don't know why you want to join jay in the starbucks bathroom but

for that being uh what it is wow jay's angry jay's pissed off today jay is real bitter let's do this let's do dms from donks your time to ask us questions he is bitter by the way. All right, let's do this. From at James underscore Whitworth. Now the dust has settled on the fight. What do you do next with Marlon Vera? Could you make an Aldo fight, BC? Or does he need another win? Look, it's a crowded title picture.

He announced himself as legit, obviously, with that win over Sugar Sean O'Malley. You know, an all-dome fight would be very fun. It would be incredibly entertaining, and it would offer Marlon Vera the opportunity to probably get, you know, arguably even more fame than he did in a pay-per-view co-main event against O'Malley, because this is a perfect

main event for a fight night. I really liked that matchmaking. I probably would, would not have come out of that. If you asked me who we should fight next, but whether it be Aldo Cruz, Faber, what have you,

you know, Edgar, you've got some old names right now in this division that you can really use to sell, uh, you know, main event slots and get eyes on the TV. And any one of those would be perfect to give Marlon Vera the potential to prove even more

that he belongs in that upper ilk with the Yons, the San Hagans, the Sterlings, all those. Yeah, I don't hate that fight, but the problem is where he's ranked. So he's sitting Marlon at 15, which sounds to me like the people ranking him gave him begrudging respect for beating O'Malley. He's 15? Bro, he's won like 5 out of 6. How is he 15? Well, the person in front of him at 14 is Song Yudong, who technically

beat him, although controversially. Here's the problem that he's facing. You've got Cruz at 11, Stamen at 12, and I think you would agree with this, you've got a very deserving 13 in Murab Diwalishvili. He kind of deserves to have an opportunity as well. I mean, Marlon does too.

They all kind of do. I'm just saying the idea that, like, do I like a Chito Vera versus Jose Aldo fight? Yes, I do. Can I claim without any debate that that's the most, that he's the one that deserves that fight the most? No, no, I can't actually do that. That's the problem. All right.

Do you have any movement? No, no, we got to move along. Jay is going to have a conniption fit. We got to move along. At Scotty14Y, which fighter's longevity has surprised you based on their fighting style and damage they've taken? Robbie Lawler's got to be one, right?

Yeah, he has. But you can see now that it seems like it's past him. And we had that discussion after his loss to Magny, which was lifeless. I mean, Overeem is hugely in this discussion because of how many knockout losses and, again, the absolute brutality. Dan Henderson was another one, Luke, where he lingered in areas where you just didn't think he could still win fights and not be eating out of a straw, unfortunately,

and he was able to do that. Anyone else jumping out to you? I feel like Ioana has that potential on the female side. Yeah, she's one. Anderson Silva is – I mean, I did a thing on Twitter. How many fighters have professional bouts that predate 9-11 uh Overeem had 10 Lawler had three excuse me Overeem had eight I think and then the spider had 10 um something like that but you know both Overeem and um Anderson Silva had just a you know a double nearly double digits for

both of them there must be other ones as well. Those are the ones you're like, if you were fighting before 9-11 and you're still fighting, chances are you have... I mean, Shogun. Shogun's another one, yeah. You can kind of see like, they've got something going there.

Would you say Shogun's title loss to John was the worst beating someone's taken in a title fight? No. Like sustained one-sided, one-way traffic? Sustained beating? No. David Loazzo's loss to Rich Franklin was worse.

Much worse. Oh, good poll there, Luke. I like that. All right. All right. From at CubbiesFan80. All right, BC. What is your Mount Rushmore of best rap albums of all time?

I love this. I love this. All right. So, Luke, I have to simplify this. Are you asking me what I think should be on the Rushmore of the greatest or my personal favorite? I think this argument where, like, oh, what is the best is dumb. Just tell me what your favorites are.

All right. How about I split the gap? I'll kind of merge the two together. My Mount Rushmore of rap albums goes like this. The Low End Theory by the tribe called quest is my favorite of all time and i think it is one million percent in that discussion uh ready to die by big nothing you know nothing more to say right there um all eyes on me by tupac i i hugely stand behind and i was late in the game really appreciating that double album and what it does for me

and with the fourth one luke um i, I could go a lot of directions. I was never a huge Nas guy, full respect, never a huge Wu-Tang guy, but full respect out there. Can I go paid in full by Eric B and Rakim? I still bang that thing. I mean, it just, you know, I mean, thinking of my master plan. I mean, I just, I absolutely love that thing. Top to bottom, front to back.

Shout out honorable mention to a 90s rap album. Yes, it came during the hugely commercial era where white guys in seventh grade like me are watching UMTV raps, buying the cassettes. But A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing by Black Sheep is a freaking fantastic album. Yeah, it tiptoes into the comedy genre a bit, but that thing is of that ilk

and no one ever, ever, ever brings that one up. I will go, and again, i don't put this as like these are the four best these are just four these are just ones that i just constantly go back to constantly go back to um all right so i will say um illmatic naz yes hell yeah I will say I'll go a little bit different than you just for the purpose of fun I will say The Chronic Dr. Dre That one had a big impact on my youth

That could be number one on any of our age Any of us our age that could be and maybe even Should be number one I mean seriously Dude that had almost A Nirvana type effect on like The people in my life circle. Like you remember what what music listening was like before and after that. That one came out.

So that one is big. Again, this is just a personal favorite of mine. I don't expect anyone to agree with this. I'm going to go Purple Haze by Cameron. It's one of my favorite albums. I listen to it front to back. It's just so good. I've never heard that one, Luke.

And then last but not least i'll do god of the serengeti vinny paz um again god you love yourself some vinny paz he's fucking dude that that album is a masterpiece um you know it's a certain kind of rap that you have to like but that one how many rap albums have nearly 20 tracks and you can listen to it front to back i mean it's almost unheard of and that's what that album is. It's outrageously good. And I just don't feel like it gets the credit it deserves. But, you know, I'll give one. Here was one that was big in my youth

because I was big into the whole gangster rap thing. Obviously, white kid, you know. It's on 187killa. The Eazy-E answer to The Chronic is just a... Ooh, I remember that one. Yes. Yes. I mean, even down to the last Roach, which was the final track on that album,

was so... It was just such a good album. Also, East 1999, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony is another one I just pump constantly. Okay. Okay. I gotta throw out Midnight Marauders by Tribe, obviously is right in that discussion as well.

That thing's still big. Oh, and you have to go... Equemini, Outcast is another one that is just outrageously good um do you do you stand by i know it's a little bit more into pop and r&b but do you stand by the uh either the fuji the score or the miseducation of lauren hill as being in this discussion i cannot deny how impactful they were i cannot deny how talented lauren hill is and i won't i'll just say it didn't speak to me like other works of art at that time spoke to me so i cannot trash it and i won't trash it it just i didn't feel the same way about it you know it still speaks to me the freaking cactus album by third base and the day that uh

that prime minister weasel yeah no that well that was on uh the the follow-up but uh the day that prime minister pete nice and uh and and the whole crew followed me on twitter was was uh it was one of the biggest days of my life i'm not kidding i i mean i i was like glowing luke it was the time william zobka right the bad guy from Karate Kid. When he followed me on Twitter. Now that was a life-changing moment. How about Black Sunday by Cypress Hill? That's another one you could put up there.

Black Sunday was an incredible, you know, cock to hammer was just, I mean, I played that one on rotation. But all right, we got to move along. From at T.ElliottBC. If Luke and Brian had to escape from no escape, what would they do to distract Jay? Jay, are you still bitter at us, or can we answer this question? Yeah, Jay, what the hell's wrong with you today? Jay, do you have a date after this?

Why are you trying to get us out of here? No, no, no, no date. They spelled no escape wrong, and there's an X in there. It's no X-cape. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. Was that your idea? Whose idea was that? I don't think I can take the credit for that. Did you have your own Lou Perlman that was sleeping with you?

We did. We did. His name was Ron Johnson from Philadelphia. Of course. Of course. He was our Lou Perlman. That's obviously a fake name, by the way, but of course it was Ron Johnson from Philadelphia. Of course, of course. He was our Lou Pearlman. That's obviously a fake name, by the way, but of course it was Ron Johnson. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He would take money from us like every couple weeks, you know, in exchange for some musical services that I still don't know what they are. Musical services, not the services you guys like to talk about.

No escape was big on the bat mitzvah circuit, Luke. They were killing it. They were slaying it. You know, I wish I could laugh, but we weren't big on the Bat Mitzvah circuit, Luke. They were killing it. They were slaying it. You know, I wish I could laugh, but we weren't big on any circuit. That's how low we were in the totem pole. We didn't even make the Bat Mitzvah circuit, although there was probably good money in that. No Hava Nagila covers, anything like that?

No, although it would have been quite appropriate, given the ethnicity of most of our members. Yeah, look, come on. Respect the tribe here, Luke, okay? I am, I am. I'm sure it was, you know, I've been to bar mitzvahs, never been to a bat mitzvah,

but just the same. Same thing, more girls. Hey, you know what would distract Jay? I don't know if you, Luke, if you were on the Jamal Charlo conference call a couple weeks back to promote the September 26th pay-per-view. In his damn dining room, he had the Back to the Future card. Jay's boner.

DeLorean. DeLorean DMC-12. Yeah, he did. And the interesting part is I had seen a video prior a few years ago with him, like with that some music video he made of himself, which was really weird, and didn't realize that he actually had like a little actual full-size car ornament that just lives in his dining room full-time. What's the over-under, Luke, on if Jay asked Jamal Charlo if he's seen Jay's documentary back in time? I'll take the over.

I don't know. I don't know what the odds in time? I'll take the over. I don't know. I don't know what the odds are, but I'll take the over. I actually think he hasn't seen it, so I refuse to ask, because if he hasn't seen either that or Back to the Future and has the car, it would just be bad. All right. Bad. Remember when Jay was making a move on?

Thank you, Jay. It's coming to a screeching halt, so let's move it along. To answer the question, BC, this is very easy. What would I do to distract Jay? I would just put up a mirror. He can look into it, and as he just begins to admire himself, I'll just be on my way. The man does have a quest for fame, and I applaud that.

All right? One day. One day. All right? All right. Last but not least, from Ann Vic, settle the debate, BC. What is this show? What are we doing with our lives?

I cannot believe I quit my other job for this. All right. Standing versus sitting to clean your rear end. Also, any accoutrement, such as the days. Who stands to wipe above age four luke your boy what yes yes i've i feel like i feel like it's the best way to get fully clean and yes this is the worst this is the worst thing that ever happened to our show and so gross and uh yes your boy keeps the wet wipes on hand for all occasions i got some in the car i got

some in my backpack i got some in the bathroom wet wipes are a i didn't use wet wipes till i got to the marine corps and we'd be in the field so long you'd have to shower with them because you go you go weeks or months without without a. And I was like, wow, these wet wipes are pretty handy. And now I keep wet wipes wherever I go. Love them. For what, though? Like to clean the, like if you got swamp ass? Well, you might like walking around with an itchy rear end.

I like being pristine clean down there. And so I like to make sure I get the job done very effectively. Jay, where are you? Where do we need you, Jay? Please, seriously. Yeah, I know. This is a much better question than the last one. I see we've really gone.

I have never used a bidet, Luke. I've had hotel rooms with them. I've never. I don't really like things. Yeah, you get where I'm going with that. Have you ever used one, Luke? One time and didn't like it. Okay. Okay. Wow. That's, you know, it's rare when I'm going with that. Have you ever used one, Luke? One time and didn't like it. Okay, okay.

Wow. It's rare when I'm... Yeah, yeah. Okay, thank you. That's it. That's it. Well, you know what? That's the best question to lead us into our next segment

where I'm sure we're going to watch people drink out of bidets or something. Take it away, BC. All right. Here's what we do, Luke. We scour the globe for the good, the bad, and the ugly in combat sports and beyond. It is Have You Seen This Shit. Luke, we always start out professional with real fights. Did you see on the top-ranked undercard over the weekend, heavyweight prospect Jared Big Baby Anderson stopping Rodney Hernandez?

But watch the celebration as he improves to 6-0 with six KOs. You like this, Luke? Kick the tires on him a little bit? No, no, that's what the dog does after he takes the dump. How many fighters do we need named Big Baby, by the way, you know? Yeah.

Right? You can only be named Big Baby if you're willing to take horse steroids. All right. There it is. Shout out to Jared Anderson with the stoppage there. Let's move on. I don't know the names of these fighters, but I'm sure Chotri will tell us that they've been the most watched fight in Asian history.

One championship. We got a Mohawk down. Mohawk down, Luke. Wow. Good Lord. Mannequin them. Oh. Yeah.

Fun fact, BC. This fight was watched by 30 billion people. Yes, thank you. Thank you very much there. Yeah, wow. You've been sent to hell, Mohawked friend. Wow, okay. Here, let's go on. Luke, you know, people still clamor for the Just Bleed days of open weight MMA.

I don't know why look louis anderson is having a tough time catching up with uh with boom kelleher there what are we doing here and why are people up against the fence dude it legit looks like he's trying to eat him yeah uh i can't see this fight lasting more than 10 seconds luke all right you know what I'm saying? After he was interviewed, was he like, Chewaka, Tunaka, Solo? Yeah, it does look like the beginning of Return of the Jedi when Luke Skywalker was trapped against that Rancor. Yeah, this is what that looks like. Leia's got to come out and choke this dude with the chains.

Yeah, he's not making 275 for Dana. But there's a reason why we don't do open weight, mismanaged fat guy fights. Can we move on, Jay? And this is the reason, Luke, because the little people tend to get their soul crushed. Check out Biggins here. Wow. Yikes.

Is that Conan Silveira? Wow. All right. Yep. That's a KO, Luke. That is. Okay. You know what?

Big Boy here is reasonably talented you think so i don't know about this uh i mean yeah a little bit you know what he probably knows about the biggie bag at wendy's the best on you know the best kept secret in all of fast food luke you ever rock out that i've never even heard of that what is that all right here's the quick quick quick deal on this um uh you know I have a fast food fix like anybody else. If you go to Wendy's and order like a hungry man's meal, you're going to spend like 11 bucks. It is what it is in 2020, right? If you're like, let me get like the classic single, the fries.

Let me get a sixer of nuggets. Let me get a drink. But if you read the menu in the bottom right corner, very small print, they change it every week. The biggie bag for five dollars plus tax you get like chicken sandwich uh fries chicken nuggets and a large drink like and then sometimes it'll be like cheeseburger it's like five different things luke for like five bucks it's a it's an absolute killer deal all right where are you where are you on the do you put fries in the frosty or not

oh yeah yeah i don't in the Frosty or not? Oh, yeah, yeah. I don't get the Frosty, though, because it's annoying. Because you can't drive. And I want to consume this as I'm moving, right? Fries in the Frosty is what people do before joining Nazi sympathizing groups. So I just want to tell you what trajectory you're on. You stand and use like a baby wipe to caress your your uh your uh yeah all right if you had if you had explosive diarrhea as much as i did you'd understand that necessity wow hey we had good

run with this show luke sorry sorry we signed you to cbs uh luke you're a big tennis fan by any chance us open is a little bit a little bit a little bit number one in the world novak jokovic was dq'd for uh what is that look for accidentally dropping this lady what happened here for not just a lady that's a line judge number one and number two you're not like even if it's accidental they're they're treated with such like reverence and gloves off kind of thing or you know gloves on i suspect is better but you know yeah dude and hit her you can't quite tell from this but after it was over she was like grabbing her throat like she got hit in the throat with this thing dude she took a worse fault remember when rodman

kicked that camera guy and then he pretended like he couldn't walk and he and he sued him for millions remember that in 96 this is this all over again so i don't know if you saw but tennis fans were so angry that they sent this lady death threats and they like were mocking her dead son like it got ugly but how the hell is this a dq look it wasn't on purpose come on bro tennis is i mean here's what i've noticed look at their sponsors you've got chase manhattan the uh the net is sponsored by rolex you got a real airline there dude this is like high society shit. If you have corn nuts and monster energy and man, well, like Condom Depot kind of stuff,

then you can get away with flagrant misbehavior. But if you're going to be sponsored by Rolex, you kind of got to be uptight. Dynamic fasteners on line one. Luke, who was your 90s tennis female crush? Everybody had one, right? Ooh. I mean, besides the queen.

Besides, you know, besides the... Who was the girl with the big forehead who kind of washed out? I'm saying besides Kournikova. Besides the goddess, the greatest. No, it wasn't Kournikova. It was another one. It was a brown hair girl. Your big Hingis?

Martina Hingis. Yeah, I think that was her name. Yeah. She was kind of more my speed. But, you know, man crush. Man crush. It's got to be Pete Sampras, right? He's a hairy dude.

He did. You know, he was. Yeah, all right. Enough. Enough. He banged Veronica Vaughn from Billy Madison. Shout out to that. Hey, let's move on here, Luke, before Jay quits the show.

This week in drunk people, Luke, check out this keg stand. What are you? How are you going to score this keg stand on a 10-9 system scale here, Luke? Let's see. This guy, Johnny B. Good. He's doing well so far. Doing well. He made the landing.

Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Stop it, Frank. You can stop at any time. Wow. Luke, what happened here? That's like one of those delayed things where the ref didn't step in

because they couldn't quite tell he was done. And then by the time they did, it was too late, you know? Oh, God. And then Hendo's landing one more punch on Bisping. Yeah. All right. Let's move on here. I've been trying to track this video down for a while. This is great uh when i jump from the roof to a motorhome roof

luke you got to be careful she got real cocky wow yeah that is uh whoo she she lands on one oh man wow and then the the roof is all wet. Bach. Yeah, but you know what? She landed just fine on the ground. Where is it? Look, you've been to these public parking lot shit show drunk fests, right? Yeah.

Let's see. Based on the way she's dressed, I'm going to say this is not the South. Although it might be. Yeah, you know what? Let me take that back. This is like Mississippi or Louisiana. More than Alabama or Georgia, you know? Yeah.

Hey, here's the drunk MVP of the week here, Luke. Give me a shot of whiskey. Would you like it in your mouth? No, I'll take it right up the nose. Luke, how bad does this hurt? Oh, God. What does that feel like, Luke? I don't know, but now I'm curious.

Would you do that on camera for us here at MK? I'd have to talk to my medical doctor first because my nose doesn't work, as you know. Oh, God, that's got to hurt. Give me the COVID test where they scrape the brainstem before I do that. Every time we do one of these drinking highlights, they're always white. Have you noticed that? Every time.

White people take big chances in life, Luke, apparently. All right. They use their privilege for the wrong reasons apparently luke i don't know you know but by the way people think you hate white people luke i'm just telling you what the people of our show say let's move on here um yeah well these are also people who are joining uh boogaloo boy groups but okay luke on the left is unbeaten ufc welterweight comes at chemayev and on the right is gustafson the heavyweight drops him with a body shot i know what happens in sparring stays in sparring but look he's out here dropping heavies bro is that to the balls no i think that's

to the to the bread basket right uh is that that that looks to be like just hold on i think he dropped him i think oh he might have he might have have. It's hard to tell. Yeah, but dude, in sparring, this is not uncommon. I can't tell you how many guys I've seen high level get dropped by lower weight class guys, and then it comes fight night, and you don't see any of that shit. It doesn't mean that much. All right.

All right. This is how the sausage gets made. This might be legal, but here's what's not legal, Luke. Fame MMA 7 in Poland over the weekend. Check out my man Amadeus Ferrari Roslik on the left. God damn. God, he was disqualified, obviously, because he came out here like he was Matt Barr

going for a 29-yard field goal here to win the 1990 NFC Championship. Oh, my God. Sending Adrian Polanski to hell. Apparently, Luke, this was only recently outlawed in Poland, and that's why he screwed up and did it. What the hell's going on in that country? The Polars don't fuck around, man. Jesus Christ.

First of all, that's a great punch to drop him, but then he's like, you know, let me just kill him. You want to see a dead body? Wow. first of all that's a great punch to drop him but then he's like you know let me just kill him you know let me just you want to see a dead body wow and just punch this dude the other way that is i love the ads on their chest that's always high class that is great uh luke you do know what the greatest strike in mma history is right wec 2010 the showtime kick right pedas yeah running off the fence i mean i know he lost that fight people forget and i know this wasn't actually a knock WEC 2010. The Showtime kick, right? Oh, Anthony Pettis, yeah, running off the fence. I mean, I know he lost that fight.

People forget. And I know this wasn't actually a knockout. This was the fifth round. No, no, Pettis won this fight. Pettis won this fight. Oh, I thought Hendo won this fight. I don't think so. I'm pretty sure Pettis won it.

No, Henderson won this fight, bro. Let me double check that. I'm pretty sure he won it. Go ahead. What's your point? This is the greatest fight in WEC history. Great fight. Great moment.

People for years trying to recreate this, but they just can't do it right here, Luke. I don't know if you saw on Saturday, your guy, the flying circus clown, Michel Padeira, tried this on Imadayev. Eh, eh. Not so well, Luke. Maybe he should take one more time on that. Eh, eh. Not so well, Luke. Maybe he should take a...

One more time on that. Yeah, okay. Maybe he should take a cue from Random Brother in the living room. Check out this kid. He's got a future in MMA, Luke. Look, Spider-Man out here climbing the walls. Bah!

Oh, God! Bah! Here's the thing luke that's only the second best showtime kick of the week check out this goat no not not john jones not anderson silva an actual goat send this owner to hell luke yes dude that sheep was like fuck your life son oh wow yes that's the kind of stuff we're here for on yes by the way anthony pettis did win that fight are you sure did i forget history there all right you forgot history yep okay sorry about that luke all right uh luke uh you know our friend in uh italy the greek god of thunder and graphics, Christos Christoforos. This week in WebScream, he was so touched by, remember we asked you to name your favorite celebrity deaths and you didn't name any celebrities last week?

So he has hit you up with this, Luke. Can we advance it, Jay? All right, Pete, I'll pour a Kalo out for Carl Sagan here, Luke, okay? That is hilarious. For folks who, yeah, it's Carl Sagan. He was the original host of Cosmos before the guy who hosts it now, Neil deGrasse Tyson. That's funny.

I could see you sporting that hair in like 10 years, Luke. That could actually be you, right? Turtleneck, you know, the whole bit. Yeah, I'm down with that. All right. Hey, Luke, here's the thing, though. If you're going to hire Spider-Man for your daughter's birthday party, you better get insurance if this guy thinks he's an athlete.

Watch this. He's putting on a show for the kids. Grandma's there, right? Abuleya's there. And then... I don't think that was part of the program, Luke. And the dad's not even sure he's okay. He's like, hey, man, is this part of the program, Luke. And the dad's not even sure he's okay. He's like, hey, man, is this part of the actor?

Anybody got any smelling salts? Yeah. Oh, wow. All right. I love this bit because he goes from shadow boxing badly to bad capoeira to bad gymnastics. It's basically he's the Michelle P pedeta of of uh childhood parties here look can you just get the drunken clown like everybody else had growing up all right let's move on hey look we have so many australian fans i love and respect these blokes and they are filling my dms with some thunder from down under it's rugby Rugby League time. Chad Townsend is about to send Kalen Ponga to the depths of Hades, Luke.

Good lord. Yeah, good thing he's wearing a supermarket bag on his head. That'll really protect his head there. Shout out to Rugby League. I don't know what the difference between regular rugby and Rugby League is. I'm sure I'll get 86 DMs explaining it. Rugby League, Rugby Union. These guys don't wear pads.

They don't have soles. This is great. Let's move on to Aussie Rules Football. Jack Viney in a knee to the face here. I like some AFL. These guys, I know the rules. I can get down with this. Watched a lot of this growing up on ESPN, too, Luke.

Watch this guy take a flying knee right to the dome look at ben askren wow god and these haircuts my lord yeah wow all right luke we're closing down here this is one of the best hysts of all time this has become the most requested clip and have you seen this shit history i had to start deleting messages because people wanted it so badly i don't know who this guy is but look that's the greatest ko of all time did he did he flip him off he did he did the diaz and then he ended the fight fuck you bro oh my look that's perfection that's some video game

shit that's the greatest thing I've ever seen that is amazing who is this guy I don't know I gotta find out I gotta legitimately was sent this 200 times like it was out of control shout out to our people there Luke we love our viewers. We got a guy named John Littleton at Littleton underscore John on Instagram.

He sent this in on his vacation in Bala, North Wales. He's hanging out with the guy on the right, the Iron Man, Craig Pearl, doing some MK tip to tip action. Luke, your thoughts. Is this no escape? I love the S eating grin on Littleton's face there in the pink on the left.

What do you think happened after the camera guy turned it off, Luke? Oh, they had themselves a party. Or a no escape concert. Really the same thing. But shout out to our people.

Luke, we close with this. You know amateur wrestling a lot more than me. You just called Bo Nickel the top 10 wrestler of all time. This move is apparently called the salami smash, Luke. Do you get a point for this? 69, dudes. What are we doing here luke when that dude got off the mat i'd be like dude i would have ordered you a roast beef sandwich but uh looks to me like you're good wow tip to lip tip on lip there luke that is not that that is something that is something that when

that dude gets off the mat if everyone doesn't have a joke it's like hey man you want to go to subway and get a five dollar footloose oh no you're good you're good you're good i forgot about that freshman my only experience with amateur wrestling freshman year high school and gym class luke i wrestled with dave perera for like three minutes and then coach harrison blew the whistle he's like what are you guys trying to have sex and i was like i'm never doing this again okay like this is not for me. I'm sorry. Look, all right. I mean, any combative sport like this, it's going to happen.

I can tell you a bunch of different stories. This one was a little bit different, but I remember the first time another dude's sweat fell in my mouth. That was fun. That was a very gross day. Dude, that's second base where I come from, Luke. At least, wow. All right. I thought in your world, that's when you spit in another i come from luke at least wow all right i thought i thought in your world that's when you spit in another person's mouth that's a little bit different all right so that's it luke you've seen it that's great uh there's a great show today despite you

and jay trying to uh get us out of here wow okay uh all right so it's time now for odds and ends bc what do you got for us for odds and ends. All right, we talked about what has just been some bad boxing judging lately, and I think every time we talk about that, Luke, we usually talk about, you know, was the boxing judging bad because the house fighter was set up to win, right? Was there some impropriety here? I don't know if you saw your Dennis Ugas over the weekend. He went for a secondary WBA welterweight title

against a huge underdog in Abel Ramos, PBC on Fox. Fantastic performance from Ugas. Look, CompuBox doesn't always tell the story, Luke, but he landed double the punches of Ramos, more jabs, more power punches,

everything for a better percentage. Again, double the punches. Marcos Viejas, the PBC on Fox scorer, unofficial, who does a great job, had it 12-0 Ugas. I had it 9-3. The judges, Luke, 7-5 Ugas, 7-5 Ugas, and then 76-year-old Dr. Lou Moret, an all-time great referee and judge, won 17-111 for ramos a split decision when luke

look i thought who got speech sean porter i'm not going to call it a robbery it was a close fight but i thought he won that they almost straight up robbed this man in a way that would not have made any sense toward a conspiracy theory when you came out here and did your ageism thing and said i don't care if uh bc's buddy down the road has 86 title fights in his career if he's 70 something and his scores suck get him out of there luke i'm not here to tell you dr lumaret is too old but that's one of the worst scorecards i have ever seen this was a one-sided not particularly exciting fight wasn't a great fight on paper. Ugas stood in front of him right in the pocket

and just showed you why he's one of the best welterweights in the world. And he had to bite his nails to get out of there. What the hell is going on, Luke? Again, people don't want to admit it, but the idea that tenure is equivalent to ability as a judge or officiant in sports is simply not true the correlation is totally overstated and we need to have a understanding that at some point if you've been doing it long enough there's a decent to even good chance you're not that good at it anymore

it's not that you just get better landed two punches of note. Both times he wobbled Ugas. You want to give him both those rounds? You want to give him one more for charity? That's fine. Lou Moret gave the guy nine rounds. What the hell is happening? It's a crime. It's a crime. When MMA fans are like, oh, close fight's a robbery,

it's like, no, it's just a close fight. This wasn't a close fight, really. It wasn't. How do you have nine rounds for the wrong guy um there's only one or two explanation three you're blind you're corrupt or you don't know what you're doing anymore take your pick that's that's the only answer you can come to i'll tell you what this ain't corrupt right if ugas want to fight he shouldn't have you'd be like okay the house fighter won somebody mailed in a loaded check to the judge.

This ain't that, Luke. I don't even know how the other two judges had it 7-5. Get the hell out of here. I understand. I understand. All right, with that in mind, time for my odds and ends. So if you saw the UFC event over the weekend, you might have noted that there were not that many fights,

only seven of them. There haven't been that few on a UFC card since 2005 when Diego Sanchez beat Nick Diaz by the way maybe Diego Sanchez's best performance he shredded the guard of Nick Diaz like it wasn't even a contest um but okay we go back to Saturday what the hell happened basically during the course of the week even before that and then just an hour or two before the fights even it seemed like a bunch of fighters fell out with covid now not all of them got it uh in the case of ricky simone his cornerman got it but out of an abundance of of caution they just pulled him off of it some of these got moved to

down the road blah blah blah but it only ended up with seven now i've seen folks asking what the hell is going on how is there possible you can only have seven well here's i would say the good news the good news is at least they got screened before they even got a chance to fight, and this thing spread on fight night. That would be a disaster. We don't have to worry about that, it seems like. And you guys know, I've been the guy, I've been like, yo, we need to take extra precautions.

But even I would caution strongly here about what is actually happening. I'm not calling the tests bad or good. I'm simply saying there is a decent to real possibility here that a lot of this, some of it, a key portion, I don't know, could be false positives, false negatives, one way or the other. Testing is imprecise in many ways, depending on the kind of test you get. It could be a quality issue.

If the UFC can do anything in terms of establishing a bubble in Las Vegas, which I'm told they're not really doing with some of these hotels, that could solve some of the problem. So what I would say is before anyone jumps to this conclusion like, oh my God, how much is going on? Yes, the UFC could be talking to us with much more transparency about what they're doing and not doing but even I would caution strongly about reaching a clear conclusion when we know there are a lot of variables that go into

the accuracy of testing both before and after either with a positive or a negative so so pump the brakes on that a little bit until we can get more information. But I would call upon the UFC to explain how is it possible you can have 12, 13 fights and you end up with seven. Is there something you could be doing differently? The answer is probably yes in that regard. But what exactly, I don't know. We've heard Dana say they're going to build hotels next to the PI. It's not a bad idea, Luke, right? No, I said this before.

I'm not opposed to the fighter hotel in any respect. It just shreds arguments about how much money you have, right? But is it a good idea on its own? It might actually be. It might actually be a great idea, to be quite honest with you, because you're losing all this inventory. Very true. Two questions.

One, how much sex do you think is being having in the nba bubble in orlando right now well i've seen family members starting to show up so if you count that plus you know the random visitors who might be finding their way in there probably a lot the groupies the ring rats uh number two uh you and i are going to be spending basically a week in the mohegan bubble ahead of the Charlo double pay-per-view. I'm so excited about that. What are we going to do together, Luke? We can call Jay and we can, you know, we can reconstitute no escape.

Yeah, I can't. Do they have alcohol in that bubble? I'll do some drunken no escape karaoke. Honestly, Jay, do you know the Jay you've been in that bubble? I'll do some drunken no escape karaoke. Honestly, Jay, you've been in the bubble. Are we going to have access to the gym or the bar or both? I have not been in the bubble. Jay, we can't hear you. I have not entered the bubble yet.

I just know of those who have been in the bubble. Food is a plenty. The gym might be an issue. I know the fighters only get an hour a day i don't know if it's uh open publicly luke that's why benavides didn't make weight if you didn't have as much access to the sauna he says so uh you're gonna be you're gonna be very thick on camera luke but um uh we do have many big surprises that week if people want to call that our launch week mk daily that'll be it we got many surprises, and it hasn't been formally announced yet,

but you and I, we're going to play a pretty big role on pay-per-view night, so I'm super excited about that. I'm so excited about that. So, you know. We might be judging some fights if this keeps up, maybe. I might have to. I might have to show these dumbasses how it's done, but, you know, it's a discussion for a different time.

Okay. Well, let's remind folks, BC, if you want to get more of MK, why wouldn't you? You can give the video a thumbs up. You can hit that subscribe button. You can go to the Showtime store. You can go to store.show s-h-o dot com. You can get all that wonderful

morning combat gear that's available for everybody. By the way, high quality gear at that Showtime does nothing low quality. There's that. If you'd like you like to try showtime also if you're on the fence about showtime luke i've been i got the showtime app on my apple tv there's some badass documentaries on there i watched the jeff beck one the suge knight one talking you know he's drunk he's throwing up on the side of the road talking about tupac being dead. Have you watched the Rick Rubin one, the Shangri-La music documentary series? No, I'm not.

Look, I'm here to pump me some showtime. Oh, and check out our Outcry interviews if you haven't, by the way. Yeah. Greg Kelly and also the fine director there. What's that guy's name? I forgot. I've forgotten.

By the way, if you want to see the show we did with Scott Coker and Mauro Ranallo, the Morning Combat Strike Force Classics, all of those are on the Showtime Anytime app as well. So you can go to Showtime.com. Try it free for 30 days. If you like it, keep it. If not, pound sand.

But we are on there. I checked that out, BC. You think my dad has the Showtime Anytime app? What do you think? Yeah, he's probably old school enough. He probably has all those type of old school channels like that. Yeah. He doesn't. He doesn't.

He doesn't know. Who do you think is on the Showtime Mount Rushmore? This is the Mount Rushmore of Showtime. I got Floyd Mayweather, Emmanuel, right? Yeah, I guess. Yeah. She was, Luke. She really was.

Okay. I'm just going to leave. I'm going to stop it right there. All right. Mike Tyson, right? He had She really was. Okay. I'm just going to leave. I'm going to stop it right there. All right. Mike Tyson, right? He had a good run. Yeah, we'll leave that up to somebody else who is more capable of answering that. Okay.

We still have more content coming your way this week. I'll have my dissected up this week. It'll be fun. So, yeah. Thank you guys so much for watching. You got a live chat for people, Luke? I do have a live chat. We're going to move that.

I'm not sure exactly when we're going to do that, but it's going to move. But for now, I'll keep it on Fridays. But yeah. Your live chat got a little spicy. I was like putting the popcorn in last week, talking about you're giving career advice. You're sending other people in the business to hell. It was rich.

I loved it. People ask questions. I answer them for the most part. Okay. So there you are. We're on social media. You can follow us all there on Instagram and on Twitter. And of course, oh, by the way, we have a Twitter now for Morning Combat at Morning Combat.

We should add that. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. Go there now. Yeah. We're loading up. Look, when we, when we, I was about to say something gross by accident.

When we, when we come, when we knock on the door, like, I think you hear us knock and I think we're coming in we're going to overwhelm you with content once this thing gets gets full on okay all right very good like we like we will be your your main squeeze in the combat game you know all those other you don't need them you don't need them anymore okay all right well with that in mind yes with that in mind where you going look i goes down. Yes, with that in mind... Look, where are you going? Look, I got nowhere to go right now, bro. Stay with me here. Believe it or not, I have things I have to do related to this job.

So how about that? All right. With that in mind, for Brian Campbell, I am Luke Thomas. Thank you guys so much for watching. Thanks to Showtime and Mocha and everybody else involved, CBS Sports as well. We will see you next week. And until then, may all of your gains be loyal. We'll be right back. We'll see you next time.