MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Usman-Masvidal 2, Stipe-Francis 2, Curved MMA Gloves | Luke Thomas' Live Chat, ep. 68

Episode Date: March 18, 2021

On today's podcast, we'll discuss the rematch between UFC welterweight champion Kamaru Usman and Jorge Masvidal at UFC 261. We'll also talk Stipe Miocic vs. Francis Ngannou 2, the UFC's need of curved mixed martial arts (MMA) gloves, how far Valentina Shevchenko and Amanda Nunes are from their peers, fight companions, how Anthony Joshua vs. Tyson Fury might go, the upcoming Derek Brunson vs. Kevin Holland main event and much more. --------------------------- 'Morning Kombat’ is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Bullhorn and wherever else you listen to podcasts.    For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit: store.sho.com   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat  To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi everybody, it is, uh, what time is it? It is 6 p.m. It is Thursday the 18th of March 2021. My name is Luke Thomas and this is episode, I believe, 68 of the Luke Thomas live chat. Um, yeah, here we are. Wow, are we late. Usually it's at 3 o'clock East Coast time. Today was supposed to be at 5, and then I got stuck on traffic around Fredericksburg, Virginia driving today. I normally don't venture out of the city,

but I had some things I had to do, and there was massive, massive construction and what do you want to call it? Accidents on I-95 South, or North, I should say. Jesus Christ, it took forever to get out of there. So, I'm a little late. Apologies, but better late than never. Today, we'll get to all of your questions. We'll look at them from the thread on the community tab right here on youtube.com slash morningcombat. Without further ado, let's get this party started, shall we? Yes, we shall. Okay, let's do it. All right, there we are. If you'd be so kind as to please thumbs up on the video,

hit subscribe. Join us, please, here in Morning Combat. We appreciate everyone who watches the show and watches the live chat. All right, I've been wasting everyone's time, so I need to get this show on the road, do I not? Let's do that. All right. Fair number of questions today. All right, let me turn this off. Are you more impressed by how far ahead Amanda and Valentina, so I'm assuming you mean

Amanda Nunes and Valentina Shevchenko, are of their competition, or is it more surprising that the competition is still so far behind? Well, I'd say I'm more impressed by how far ahead they are. I mean, usually what you have in any kind of weight class, sometimes you can get parity where you had something like that at welterweight in the last few years, or since the departure of GSP. You had relative parity there. Light heavyweight used to be like that back in the day where you had some significant parity there.

But if you don't have parity, then it's usually a situation of extremes. Either there is relative parity or you've got one figure kind of lording over the division. In that sense, there's nothing unusual about Amanda and Valentina. They merely are the latest versions of that for women's straw feather, well, yeah, straw bantam, no, excuse me, fly bantam and featherweight divisions, respectively. So, yes, I mean, I can sing their praises about Amanda Nunes' punching power, decision-making well-roundedness for Valentina, very good and underrated athleticism, good takedowns, good round management, accurate striking, all the things you want to mention. Those are obviously,

we've done that on this live chat a million times. We've talked about all of their various gifts and skills and what they bring to the table. But I don't really think this is some kind of moment to be like, wow, we should really reflect on how far women's MMA is in terms of being behind. It is true that it's not on par with the men's game in most respects, although not entirely. But in most respects, it's not on par with the men's game. But the dynamic of two figures like that lording over their divisions,

that seems to be true irrespective of gender. And yes, Amanda's obviously tremendous, and so is Valentina. This is sort of a deeper question here. I'll circle back to it because it's just kind of heavy to start, but I will come back to it. I will come back to it in today's live chat, I promise. All right, do you think if the UFC adopted curved gloves of some kind, we would see more fighters employ a really quick jab with a relaxed fist as a range finder in a similar way to Tyson Fury, like you're trying to shake a booger off your hand?

You might. They wouldn't have to focus on keeping their hands clenched and they could just flick it out. It's true, but I mean but there's a lot of problems. One is part of the benefits of the gloves being what they are is it allows you to grab. You would still want to grab a shoulder, grab a collar tie, grab the head and push it away or pull it. And so any of those situations is going to result in a potential eye poke. Certainly it enhances the risk. it. And so any of those situations is going to result in a potential eye poke, certainly enhances

the risk. And there's sort of other kind of tactile uses of the glove, both offensively and defensively, that the curved glove to me would definitely, or I should say this, the curved glove, curved glove, excuse me, would make a significant impact on a certain kind of way in which the fighters extend their hands, but I don't think it would curb the totality of the problem. Although it doesn't necessarily have to. It doesn't have to solve all the problems. It just has to meaningfully solve enough of them or enough of the major kind of them for it to work. So, would it change the way that fighters use their hands in some capacities?

I guess it would depend on how much they're forced over. I tend to think you'd probably still get some who wanted to, because part of the issue is they want them to go hand up, palm facing the opponent, fingertips pointing to the sky. You can still do that in a curved glove. Your wrist would have the tape on it plus the Velcro, so that's going to be kind of hard, and the fingers are going to the sky, you can still do that in a curved glove. Your wrist would have the tape on it plus the Velcro, so that's going to be kind of hard, and the fingers are going to go over, but it's still somewhat doable, right? Although it actually kind of changes the equation. Maybe if they have curved gloves, they would stop this, and you could do

that because now the fingers, instead of pointing this way, would be pointing down, and if they were this way, they'd be pointing this way, and that's bad. I guess we'd have to see. But it's a reasonable thing to conclude, I think, in some ways. But I don't know that it would meaningfully change fight tactics in terms of that kind of a thing. I just think it would maybe change the way some penalization is enforced. Obviously change the way some penalization is enforced, obviously change the way the hands face, and reduce some of the raking or hand-seeking that happens in certain circumstances. But here's the thing about this. Nobody knows if that actually is true. Now, everyone talks about how the ones in Pride used to be that way and blah, blah, blah, but we're in a different era

of MMA, and I know that we've been over it a million times. Trevor Whitman believes that he has the kind of technology that has solved this problem. To my knowledge, and I'm not saying that it's wrong. I'm just saying, to my knowledge, where has this been tested? I don't know that it has been. Maybe it has. I mean, it certainly might have been. And I don't just mean in the gym.

I mean, like, at scale, promotion is using it for all the various divisions, women or men, you know, big or small, whatever. And that they've gathered this sort of data. I would like to see what that data shows. Does it make a meaningful impact? Does it change what kinds of things that fighters do in terms of range finding, grabbing? To what extent does it alter attacks i tend to think that's going to be relatively muted as a any kind of change but i would i don't know i mean people always ask questions in mma it's a fine question don't get me wrong i'm not

i'm not bashing the question but they're like wouldn't this be better and i'm like some things i think don't necessarily need to be tested. Like, do we need to test what would happen if eye gouges were made legal? I tend to think that is, you lose one eye popping out of someone's socket. That's bad enough. This is not something that necessarily has to be scrutinized. We don't really know what would happen, and we have to kind of figure out from an evidentiary standpoint what it might show. Clearly, that's not a useful application of our time.

But what about the idea that I think the effects are people assume what they might be? You've got to show your work. I talk about this with anti-doping forces all the time. They hide behind a series of understandable, but to me, ultimately unsatisfying answers about what the ethics would be of testing some of this stuff. But at some level, it's like, how do you really know that any of this is working or what parts may be working really well, what parts might not be working that well? And it's just a lot of take our word for it.

I'm not a take a word for it kind of guy. If there's something where you can apply a rule or a series of rules or implement some kind of catalyst for change, I want to know what the actual impacts of that change were. And they may be hugely significant, but at a bare minimum, we should know, we should have information upon which to make informed, quite literally, decisions. I tend to think we don't do enough of that, which is why what the Kansas Commission did in terms of open scoring, putting together at least some kind of data, some kind of testing, a lot more testing is needed because we don't have enough answers based on what we have. What we have is at least the beginning of some kind of answer, perhaps. It needs to be tested again, much more, about what some of the things may be true and actually

be true when you apply open scoring. So they're all fine things to wonder about, but I tend to think whenever you introduce some kind of significant change, a changed curvature in the glove would affect every fight. The network effects of that are somewhat hard to anticipate. Some things you might be able to call, some things might happen that you wouldn't necessarily think to consider. Would you consider reviving your Luke Thomas channel for slice of life vlogging content from Columbia? Well, if I go, um, or buy a drone. No, I put out a video yesterday for the first time in a while. I'm trying to be, I I've having a hard time articulating why I've not been uploading. Partly it's just got familial issues.

I've been very busy with family. Part of it is, again, I'm not burned out on MMA, but a little bit over some of the less fun, savory parts of it. Not my job. My job's great. But about the industry itself, it kind of... I've had a moment of reflection about the industry and what my place in it may or may not be and uh it kind of sat me apart from it in my at least in my mind um and like on purpose like wanting to be distinct from it um

and so i think i was just you know i would sit here sometimes and be like, okay, it's time to make a video. And I'd be like, you know what? I don't want to do it. Uh, cause I wasn't in a headspace where, um, I don't know. It's hard to explain. It's hard. It's hard to explain. And then on Sundays, of course, you know, my family was being neglected. So I had to do something about that. Anyway, I think I've come to a different place. I'm not doing a good job articulating why I felt the way I felt, because I haven't really taken the work to articulate it. But suffice to say, I don't feel like that today,

so I'm hoping for steadier content. Any chance we can get an occasional MK fight companion A la Rogan and Friends But with Luke B.C. and rotating special guests Jay, we're not going to put Jay on that Rashad Evans would love to Yeah, we have talked about doing some of these things We're just waiting for the right moment There's some issues about

When you might do it And why Because you wouldn't want to do it on a fight You would have to cover otherwise, because it actually ends up getting in the way a little bit. So we're trying to find the moment for that. The answer is we have definitely talked about things like this, but we just haven't quite worked out when and where.

But Showtime is interested. They're interested. Great question. Has Francis Ngannou actually evolved since the first fight versus Stipe? Conversely, has Stipe declined by any margin since then? Eye injuries, age, the battles with DC. If so, has the gap closed enough to truly justify Francis as a minus 135 favorite? There is absolutely positively no way to know what you can bank on or what might be you know what you would consider to be reasonable inferences a reasonable inference might be that

maybe Francis hasn't evolved to the degree that he and his camp says he has or maybe he has but let's say for a second that he hasn't but he he still has gotten better. And while not up to what he has portrayed, it won't necessarily matter for this particular consequence or this particular about, I should say, in terms of consequence. think the the slow weathering of Stipe Miocic over time not a significant amount but sort of accumulative in its own kind of way that is enough to tilt the balance of the scales right but in large part this it's simply not knowable it's just not knowable and the reason why I say it's not knowable is not merely because the fights have ended so quickly right Right? These four knockouts and like, the guys knocked out people in, you know, five nanoseconds or whatever it is. Just the most insane shit you ever heard in your life.

But the Rosenstruck fight, that one really kind of surprised me because, not that he won and won spectacularly. Whenever, dude, any punch from Francis is, you know is dim mock. So in that sense, no. But what I mean is, I know that he wasn't drilling that particular combo, the way in which he responded. He kind of responded instinctually in the things that he and his team had planned. He kind of threw out the window. And if you go and watch closely, Rosenstreich was countering him in the pocket. Now, obviously, it wasn't enough in the end to matter.

But there was a situation where you could have really cleanly applied, shown in the laboratory and then brought it to bear in the actual moment. And instead, to me, it was just a bit of a reverting back to what comes natural to him. And maybe that was just nerves. Maybe that isn't... How much can you read into that? Was it 18 seconds or something? You want to be careful about that, too. I'm just saying, to me, I'm going to call it an unknown.

Because his team are certain he has rounded the corner. I think he talks in a way where he feels like he's rounded the corner. I think he talks in a way where he feels like he's rounded the corner. There's reason to believe that there's been enough corner rounding to really make a difference. But the idea that they've shown clear evidence of that at scale, it's not his fault that his power is what it is, but it prevents us from cleanly answering that question. I do think the one about Stipe is a little bit more answerable, which is, I don't think he took some kind of beating, maybe in the second Cormier fight, through the early parts of it, but certainly I don't think he took a beating in the last one, although it was

kind of tough and his face was definitely marked up and whatnot. But I do think there's been a slow kind of hammering of him. The JDS fight, the first JDS fight, he got absolutely, you know, I mean, he put it on, he is part of the reason JDS declined the way he did, but also part of the inevitable decline that will meet Stipe if he sticks around long enough, and perhaps that will be this fight, perhaps it will not. You know, obviously JDS has contributed to that

and some of the other things that have gone on in his career. So the question for me is not, has he truly turned into a butterfly kind of situation? I don't know. But between the age and the understandable, not substantial, but perhaps incremental age decline of someone like Stipe with Francis just having stupid power and perhaps some improved

tactics or more? Is that enough to tilt the balance? I tend to think that it might be. Will we see it? I have no fucking idea. I have no clue about that. Would you and BC ever consider doing a resume review type video on old fights? For example, you could talk through the Four Kings era of boxing to build to big matchups like Fedor versus Cro Cop, GSP versus Penn, or Liddell Rampage 2. Yeah, we definitely want to do stuff like this, for sure. People responded to that content. I think we got another one coming, by the way, pretty soon. So yeah, we would absolutely do something

like that. For sure. You recently mentioned that you have obtained a medical marijuana card. That's true. What kind of weed have you been smoking? I don't smoke it. Edibles. Gummies in particular. That's what your boy needs for good sleep.

They have one here. I think it's called District Dispensary, something like that. Anyway, they make them. Have you considered reaching out to Derek for more plates, more dates, which is a YouTube channel, and do an in-depth interview about the current state of USADA and the UFC? Yes, I have thought about it. I probably will do it eventually, but I'm still looking for a little bit more information before I really make that reach. But yes, it's on my radar.

Gaethje and Chandler have become contenders in the old days, you saw a fair bit of this. When they came over from Pride, and they had some kind of Pride rivalry, where it was maybe like Brazilian top team versus shoot-to-box or something. There might have been a little bit of that. You certainly saw it in the days when guys were going back and forth between Icon Sport, Rumble on the Rock, PFL. Not PFL, I'm sorry. IFL, Elite XC.

You did see a lot of that bleed over like this. So it feels novel given that you just don't see that kind of exchange of talent anymore. But it happened all the time. Or, you know, and vice versa. Things would be built up in the UFC or a fighter would get a big name. Like when BJ beat Matt Hughes and then he went and fought in what, K-1? After that, K-1 Heroes? He took all of that juice and then

went to another place to apply to exactly his craft in any case. It's just rare these days. Plus, the UFC likes to usually be the author of their own moments. They'll capitalize on one if it's just rare these days it's just rare these days plus the ufc likes to usually be the

author of their own moments they'll capitalize on one if it's a lot if it's a layup uh this is this is pretty layup ish which which i which is to say like it's hard to make a bad fight at the top of lightweight i mean it's just there's a lot i mean this is a great permutation but there's a lot of different great permutations you could have. So yes, this used to happen relatively frequently in either direction. It's just rare now. What is the significance of getting 100k subs and possibly more for the channel? Does YouTube give you more money if you have over 100, 200, 300? How many views does a video need to get for it to be worthwhile putting effort into making it?

When is the Super Chat coming back? Super Chat, I'm'm not so sure but i run that up the flagpole to get that done to charity i'm not i don't know where it is where we stand on that but uh to answer the question it's not like at 100 that's some kind of magical moment where all of a sudden the ad rates bump up you have sorry you have to choose youtube will give you a big plaque i've got it mine somewhere i don't know where it is. I've got a plaque. When you do it, you get a plaque at a million. You get a plaque at 10 million. These are important, but it's somewhat, obviously, arbitrary moments.

What's really the difference between 99,000 and 105,000? Nothing, really. These are largely equivalent channels. But it's just a nice way to sort of, I think, draw distinctions and note achievement. It's an easy number to understand. And in that sense, you know, plus people understand it's a threshold that is considered at 100,000. I don't know if it's like super special, but it's, you know, it's something of an achievement. The million one is obviously the one that's the real differentiator. And then 10 million is for the ultra, ultra, ultra, ultra elite.

But so, no, in, ultra, ultra elite. So no, in that sense, you don't get more money that way. Really, this is all done algorithmically in these actually algorithmic bidding sessions that are done by these essentially computer programs that YouTube has set up. There's no one rate. So there's no... It can run the gamut. So for example, if you look at some of the ad rates maybe for travel vlogs or people involved in the travel and leisure industry, they tend to have really high ad rates based on who is actually paying for the ads. And these are companies that tend to have a lot of money, which could be airlines, it could be hotels, it could be somewhere else in that chain of vacationing.

They have significantly high ad rates in general. Even that will vary, but that's sort of a general proposition. You are probably going to make more money. Let's say you had 100,000 subs on a travel channel, you had 100,000 subs on an MMA channel. You're just going to make more probably with the travel channel by virtue of all the things that I've mentioned. Again, there will be variants. Beyond that, what you're looking for is just, again, some of this is out of your control, but based on what kind of audience you're generating, what percentage of it is broken down by gender,

how long do they stay there, how did they find you. This kind of goes into this sort of algorithmic bidding process that ends up resulting in money. For me, I don't go and think of it like how much does each one make it worth. I don't do these transactionally. I sort of think of it more in the end like how much money are we trying to generate? Okay. Based on what I know about what these kinds of videos generate, how many of them do I need to do? Or what's a decent kind of framework for getting to that position? Not so much maximizing video content in terms of numbers of videos, but the video content itself.

The post-fight shows are the most lucrative usually by far. Sometimes this one can actually generate decent ad rev. You can get some that have like 30, 40K in terms of viewership and they'll be on par sometimes with 100K in terms of the video itself. But once you start getting into the hundreds of thousands, that's when the ad rates know, several hundred dollars or more. Um, I think the most I've ever made on a single video on a single video was probably 1500 bucks. Um, and that was one I did. I think it was my post-fight show for Mayweather McGregor. That one did a lot. And I've had a few of them clear the thousand. But in general, what I'm looking for is, you know, I like it when,

in my personal channel, when I'm actively uploading, which I realize has not been happening recently, but when it does, I like it when it's around, you know, I'm looking for a couple hundred bucks or more for the standard kind of upload. If I'm doing a big, important, timely, which again,

they've not been, but let's say I'm doing that video for a breakdown of a major UFC star, a Conor or an Izzy or whatever, and I put those up on a Sunday, those should do really well. Those should do deep into the hundreds, if not, you know, six, 7, 8 or more sometimes, depending on, you know. Again, it really can run the gamut a lot. There's no real hard lines on this whole thing, but that's sort of what you're looking for. Can you record you and BC's reactions to big fights

like you did for Conor and Dustin more often? Enjoyed seeing you break character and have a relatable fangirl moment. Well, fangirl for the moment. But, um, no. I mean, let's keep those rare. When will my dad return from getting those cigarettes? It's been three years now.

I don't... I don't think dad's coming. That is funny. Let's see here. Okay. Okay. With regards to fight cards, is this year proving to be one of the best so far when considering how many stacked cards we are getting just before May alone?

Yeah, so far it's been strong. It's been really strong. What are we, still in first quarter, January, February, March? So we're still in first quarter. Let's see how the rest of the year goes. I agree. Things are looking... The forecast is strong, but we are still in nascent stages of this year. Hi Luke, do you think a reporter has a right to not discuss stories of people they know closely

or related to even though it's their job? For example, Chris Cuomo stated he would not talk about his brother Andrew Cuomo due to their relationship. Well, he had no problems talking to and about him when things were going well. His issue was that he decided after things were not going well that it did not bear. He was not then subject to the responsibilities of talking to his brother. Which, yes, he's right on the back end, but you were wrong on the front end. You should have not done that to begin with. And they were happy to milk it for ratings.

And then, you know, turns out he's groping, allegedly, women left and right and doing more than that. And besides, you know, turns out he's groping, allegedly, women left and right and doing more than that. And besides, you know, old people getting killed. And all of a sudden that, you know, there's not that. But yeah, certainly you can recuse yourself from situations like this if you are unable to, and in most cases, a good editor won't allow you to do it. Yeah, it's very common. In the 90s, my dad made me watch 80s boxing VHSs to prove 90s boxing was inferior to 80s boxing. That's how I was introduced to Hagler. What are your first memories of Hagler?

That's a great question. First memories. I kind of became more obsessed with him later in life than I was early. I definitely watched the Leonard fight. That was big. But honestly, I didn't really get into what he was doing and why he was important until my 20s. So I don't have this romantic moment in my life that everything descended from. I had a different scenario at the time. Luke, would you ever consider training to be a referee in combat sports?

I can see... Yeah, blah, blah, blah. I thought about it at times. I got invited to do a referee and judging gig in Virginia, but I just don't have the weekend. I mean, who could have the weekend? I could go to a course, yes. I certainly

could go to a training event. That is not an issue, but everything else, I just don't have the time for. Any chance you could do a studio tour? Yeah, I've been meaning to do one. And the reason why I haven't is twofold. One, I need to get set up on this particular wall a charging station.

And I know how to make one. I've just not done it yet. And the other thing I realized was this room is all wrong. It's all wrong. I've got my desk basically in the middle of the room and then I'm like halfway to this wall and then I'm halfway to this wall. From this lens

to that wall is maybe six or seven feet. It's not a huge room. It's a small room. Something like that. Maybe eight feet. And so I ultimately have my desk sitting in the goddamn middle of the room. If you go and look at what most studio tours have, they have it up against a wall, which really protects them for

things like cable management and simplicity's sake. I need to figure out how to rearrange the office first to get that kind of a look. I don't know what I'm going to do to do that. So between those two issues, I have not done one yet, but I need to because I'm pretty close. I've got basically every piece of equipment that I need and have made use of at this point, but I've done a poor job of arranging them. Luke, when you went on Rogan, was there any discussion beforehand about topics to cover? No. I remember you saying you for sure wanted to get into PEDs and the precarious position in which fighters find themselves in,

blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Did you and Joe outline the convo in advance? No, there was no discussion about it whatsoever. Not one word ahead of time. Which is, you know, how it should be, right? That's how, it's exactly how, just, I mean,

there can be certain circumstances where outlining it could serve a professional purpose, I mean, there can be certain circumstances where outlining it could serve a professional purpose, but generally speaking, this is fine. You often dismiss fiction when you're talking about these kinds of literature. I don't dismiss it, uh, that you are consuming. When you say that for you, you don't have time for them. The subtext is always that you think they are only for leisure and wouldn't offer material for personal growth and learning. I don't mean that. I mean that in terms of my personal priorities.

I don't have time for them. At least I don't perceive to be having time for them. Do you not feel incomplete when you cannot follow some intellectual discourse when they mention some big classic from fictional literature? Let's say Camus, Orwell, Kafka, Dostoevsky, and Vonnegut. Well, I've read all of them. Not all of their works, but I've read at least one work from all of them. You mentioned Dr. Carl Hart's book as an important for changing a person's perspective on how they view drug use and drug users.

Is it not conceivable for you that even fiction or poetry can let you generate new insights? Yes, of course it is. I'm just not good about using those things to foster insights. Luke, can you give us more clarity on what happened with Jay?

You've said he's off the show, but he might come back eventually. What will determine this? I don't know. If we feel like it's a good fit. Yeah, Jay just is still with the company. He just got pulled off the show, and he's going to work on other shows with the company.

He's not on this one. That's it. Everyone's like, oh, y'all are talking bad about this dude. His job is not in peril. Trust me. The dudes who run the company have seen the documentary. They saw it well in advance.

They know what they're getting. All of this was like, you know, there's no secrets here. There's no like public campaign. It's a lot of pro wrestling what you're looking at, which is why I don't like being involved in it. It is good. They did a good job making it, but it's just not my steez. Dream coach interviews for this year. Barrowman, Whitman, Mike Brown

Gotta be coaches you'd be interested in interviewing No, it has to be coaches interviewed and talking Big difference There's many people in the industry I'm interested in interviewing And then when we actually get to the part Where they have to be interviewed They don't wish to say anything of note or interest

Not interested in that For example, Trevor Whitman is a very interesting man, but if he doesn't want to share things in a conversation, which of course is his right, but if he doesn't, it's not going to make for the world's best interview. Oh, look, it's on you to get him out of it. It can be to an extent, that's true.

But mostly what it's about is do they want to participate in this exchange or not? And some of them might. Usman only seems to take down guys he feels have no submission or wrestling threat. With that being said, how does Masvidal make Usman respect his grappling? Should he attack from the bottom and allow takedowns to occur without trying to defend them. I think you got to defend them a little bit, but from there, it's less about, you have to understand, BJJ's scout put out, he did such a good job with this. He put out a huge video, not a huge, actually a pretty small one, but an important one on the particular kinds of, the sort of decision tree that Kamaru Usman has for these moments and in those particular

situations along the fence line. He actually put together like a whole thing like if he does X, he goes through with this and then if they do Y, he goes this and then it's this whole tree of decision making and you know it doesn't matter what choice they make, the whole thing is kind of mapped out to an extent anyway in advance. That's sort of the idea that you can go and look at what he's doing there. You would have to disrupt that. That's the chain you have to disrupt. Now, could you do that by actually fighting them off potentially? Could you do that by creating separation? Obviously, you probably could. How easy is it for you to create separation? Could you create separation vis-a-vis your guard? What are the mechanisms to disrupt that meta that he has that makes that

whole decision tree possible? That's what you have to undo. What was your relationship to guns like before you entered the military? How did it change over the years um do you own a gun now i do not do you enjoy shooting for sport or as toys to an extent it's fine i i like it i don't love it like some some people like oh fucking i get to go shooting and it's awesome instagram is filled with it i don't really look at it like that but it is fun i do enjoy it uh obviously you know if it's if you're in the right circumstance just you, you know, shooting someone's, you know, four 10 on the back of their, you know, I don't know, truck and you're shooting beer cans. You can miss me with that. But, um, let's see.

I had hunted for a few years. Um, deer, uh, dove. Um, what else have we hunted uh turkey but that went quite poorly um so you know i've used you know 243s 410s 22s um all the kinds of sort of learner models that you might have uh although 243 is a little more than that. And then, you know, I'll say this. I've run the gamut from sort of intro to guns, guns, intermediate use gun level, different kinds of action on the rifles, different kinds of rounds, buckshot or spray or whatever. And then the military obviously has a very specific kind.

I had the M16A2 service rifle. How did it change over the years? It didn't really change by use in the military at all. It more changed as a function of policy preferences and what you're trying to use policy to solve for so i didn't i didn't the only thing i always found not even weird but like um it's not for me man i fired i fired i fired a mark 19 grenade launcher this is the one where it's a belt fed grenades and you're sitting on your rear end you you have your feet in the stirrups basically, and you have a butterfly trigger and it's got two handles here.

Almost like you're doing like, you know, Rose. Um, and you have the butterfly trigger, man, you fire a, a Mark 19,

you know, grenade launcher with a belt fed. You just as the grenades come through, you start doing that, dude, I'm telling you, man, like y'all can keep your rain. It doesn't, it doesn't have to say after the, that was one of those moments where it's like, this is such a good experience. And this is so fun that nothing else is ever going to come close. So when I go to the range, which is very infrequently, but to the extent that I do, I really try to play with like, um,

the kinds of rifles or weapons that you ordinarily would not have access to on the street or have some kind of unique, you know, a form factor or something like that. So we've got a German weapon that is, you know, otherwise unusable. That's what I'm looking for. Excitement level for a potential TJ versus Jan fight. Well, as a fight itself, one could reason that it could be quite good. As a next step in the Bantamweight division, yeah, I don't like it at all. I mean, I've got the most lax and counterintuitive views on anti-dping in, in all of sports media, perhaps. And even I think,

dude, the rules are what the rules are. They're stupid, but they are, they are what they are. And you broke them to give them a title shot. I mean, I,

yes, I understand. No one took the title from him at Bantamweight in terms of an actual fighter in an actual bout. And so that leaves some things unresolved, but that is what the situation is. And you don't have to accommodate TJ to change that. However, I do think that because no one took it off of him,

that he should be considered, uh, knocking on the door. He needs a number one contender fight. I'm perfectly okay with that, but you know, if they end up making TJ versus Jan, I'm not going to sit here and say it's a shitty fight. No, it's a great fight. It's a great fight. I can't wait to see exactly what TJ looks like, what he's been working on, what he's not been working on, what the narrative, I mean, we've never, you know, have we had in the modern, in the modern era, I'm not talking about Tim Sylvia or Barnett or anything like that. I'm talking about the modern era. Have we had a, a, what am I saying? Jon Jones has had a million things. I was going to say, have we had a,

have we had a situation like this where he had a long suspension and came back and we didn't know how he was going to perform? But TJ also wasn't as special as Jon Jones was before Jon had his issues anyway.

So there's some differences there too. But I, I listen, I, who the fuck knows how he's going to look? I have no clue. Are you in the training room?

Cause I'm not in the training room. I have no idea how he's going to look? I have no clue. Are you in the training room? Because I'm not in the training room. I have no idea how he's going to look. I just know giving him the fight right away, it seems off. Did you see the BT Sports promo on Leon Edwards prior to last weekend's fight? If so, what did you think? I have not. I saw the original one that they made that I told, speaking of Rogan about, but I've not seen that one. Highest percentage submission when you were training BJJ?

It had to be Kimura. It had to be Kimura. Because I could get it from half guard, cross body, no sweat. I used it for reversals. I used the Kimura grip. I used it for all, you know, takedowns. I used it for all kinds of stuff. What's the most inspiring and motivating MMA performance you've ever seen? You know, obviously some of the comeback by Darren Elkins more recently has been great.

I'll give credit where credit is due. I think Ioanni and Jacek in that fight with Zhang Wai Li was incredible. Adesanya in the fifth round. That was a big boy moment against Kelvin Gastelum. That was a huge one. Anderson Silva

having the wherewithal to throw up that triangle in the fifth on Chael Sonnen. That was a big one. Anderson Silva having the wherewithal to throw up that triangle in the fifth on Chael Sonnen, that was a big one. That was a huge one. There have been some really impressive ones. My favorite photo is the one of Tony Frickland going insane. He's got this whacked out face and he's got blood coming down. That's about, he had actually lost or he had, it had been stopped due to cuts. So he had lost it in that way. And he was actually yelling out of frustration.

But that fee, when you look at, just look at the photo, you don't actually get that sense. Like if you didn't know the context, you'd look at the photo and you'd be like, wow, man, like that's a real, that's a real moment of rage and perhaps celebrated aggression. When they win, they're like, ha, ha, ha, that kind of thing. Obviously, Randy Couture coming back and beating Tim Sylvia was fucking huge. That was super huge. Forrest Griffin beating Rampage Jackson was big for that reason. Rashad knocking out Chuck Liddell was big. I mean, the list is endless. We've seen with the elite of strongmen, the likes of Thor and Eddie Hall and their record-breaking deadlifts, that the maximum

weight a human can achieve when trying to put on as much functional muscle as possible is 460 pounds. Sort of, not quite. That being said, if you were to create the best fighter at the limit of human potential, assuming as well as they were fully trained, how much would they weigh? You want more like Michael Phelps than you want, you know, Eddie Hall. You want him long, lanky, athletic, sick motor, capacity for work, capacity for volume, and, you know, willing to take a shot. I mean, I don't know if Michael Phelps is willing to take a shot as much as, you know, Eddie Hall might be. And Eddie Hall is obviously a special athlete. But if I'm thinking about what's good for fighting, I always think you want someone who's a little bit more like a swimmer than you want anything else.

And of course, Eddie Hall used to be a swimmer back in the day. But I mean, you know, that kind of a body. Ryan Lochte is more going to be helpful for you than, you know, Thor is. So I was asking, who is the toughest opponent for Colby of the three, which includes Edwards, Wonderboy, or Burns? I would imagine it would be Wonderboy. Now, it's either Wonderboy or Edwards.

I tend to think Colby would do well otherwise, simply by virtue of volume and stall positions, but working positions, and just kind of drain a guy like Gilbert over and over again. Edwards, I think, looked really sharp, but we just don't exactly know how good he is, or at least what the very best version of him looks like, because you know,

you guys know. And then Wonderboy to me is, you know, he's going to be feast or famine. You know what, maybe I'll rethink that. I would say who's the toughest opponent for Colby of the three you know maybe the Burns fight would be more competitive on the feet which would limit Colby's ability to do work there and then obviously with the ground he had to be ultra careful there is that um they're all tough. Who is the one that I could eliminate as like the not necessarily the

toughest? I'm saying Edwards, but I don't know that that's true. That's a great question. Shit. Who is the toughest fight for Colby of the three? Because you can see a situation where all three, you know, Wonderboy and Burns are the most dramatic in terms of their precise skill sets, where they have the most advantage over the rest of those divisions, and in this case, Colby too. You know, you got the jiu-jitsu with Burns.

Obviously, he's got more than that, but you got that. And then with Wonderboy, that sort of odd striking style that he has, plus some of the other stuff, obviously, you can do as well. But those are the two, the ones that kind of stand out, I guess, now now that I think about it, for

those reasons. So maybe those are the two toughest? That's a great question. Which of these will happen first in the UFC? An eye pops out, paralysis, death from a pile driver, or a compound fracture? So a compound fracture if memory serves, that is when the bone not only breaks, but then breaks through

the skin, for sure you're going to have a compound fracture. Has DC lost any credibility? Oh, you're talking about Daniel Cormier. In his commentating, he has become quite the company's shell, this person writes. And it shows through very transparently. Well, credibility, I don't know if he's lost credibility. No. Like, when you say that, what does that mean?

Like, his championship status is now more in question, or his knowledge of the fight game is, or something? Like, dude, the promotion runs every part of that show, including the commentary. You're going to get, for the most part, virtually every case, you're going to get promotion-approved commentary. UFC-approved commentary is not going to be the most precise or honest commentary you can get. So if you feel like someone's playing favorites or ignoring certain things, in a lot of cases, it's not his fault that he has teammates, but are, you know, people he has had as teammates and people that he was rivals with who are actively engaged in still in their fight careers

that creates some complicating factors, you know, as well. So this is true of really any, any of these guys. Um, I think in many cases they're just doing their best. I think a lot of them do as good of a job as you can ask, but it's UFC approved commentary. It's just always going to be something missing from that whenever that happens. That's going to be the same for any promotion, Bellator too, because it's run by them, I think. I don't know if Showtime has say over the commentators or not. I'm imagining not. I'm imagining Bellator does. And so for those reasons, you're getting Bellator approved commentary. There's going to be something missing from that. So in that sense, I don't know that he's lost credibility.

What I think has turned some people off is, and I'm guessing, is one, that the commentary, and again, for some people they're going to like this and for some people they're not, but it sounds a little bit more like fight companion-y than kind of technically breaking it down like brian stand might have so i think some people that that does not appeal to and again there's going to be you know your mileage on that is going to vary and then quite the company shill and it shows through very transparently he certainly has and including on social media argued argued on behalf of the UFC in ways that I don't think were, they were not dishonest. And I would never suggest that they were dishonest in the sense that he was sharing like, you know, personal experiences or reasons to, you know, not merely like what UFC

did to him, but how he grew in the process. And so I don't think he's in any way not telling the truth there, but that story is by definition anecdotal and doesn't really capture the fuller reality, which I'm sure he is at least nominally aware of, but probably a lot more than that, which is, oh, look, I've got paid great. You got paid, all of y'all got paid 20% if you were lucky. Remember all those things that were happening at one point when people were complaining about Christmas bonuses or something? And then a couple of fighters put out like, oh, I remember one Christmas UFC sent me a

bunch of money, which is a real thing, man. If you're a parent or a husband or a significant other and you can't provide for your family, it must be a very difficult moment for you personally. And so to the extent that UFC provided relief for that, I can imagine being a very formative experience, but the reality is what the reality is. Y'all are underpaid. And I said this before.

The debate is over. There's no debate anymore. There's not a debate. The only debate is, is anything going to be done about it? And what should be done about it? And that, to me, is a very robust debate. I don't know that the Ali Act is really the best idea for MMA, not as it's currently constructed in boxing. I wouldn't want what boxing has at all. But at the same time, what do you owe the fighters? What if that's not really the predominant conclusion? So you can have a debate about what to do about it. But what it is, they're underpaid.

Argument over. There's not an argument anymore. It is what it is. And so if you see people trying to argue in any capacity that they're handsomely rewarded in UFC, individuals might be, individual paychecks could be. There could be ways where aggregately it's a million dollars, for example, is a lot of money, but it's not much if you were owed 10, right? So, um, but again, if you have an, any gig you have with them, if you want to keep it, it's gotta be approved through them. If you work for the promotion, that's just what it

is. So is he saying things that are defending the company's pay structure? Yeah. Yeah, he is. Have you seen the latest news from the UK and the government's reaction to the new Bellator contract with BBC. No, I have not. The UK government has called on the BBC to justify its broadcast management arrangement. Broadcast arrangement, excuse me, with MMA promotion Bellator. I meant the current debate about the lasting effects concussion can have on sportsmen and women's health. And a bunch of people are being called to testify at various hearings. That's interesting.

Honestly, if that's the first I'm hearing about it, I had no clue. I will absolutely look into it. Look, how real are fighters being when they say they will die in the octagon? I do believe most of them, yes. And where does that sort of mental toughness come from? It is mental toughness, but mental toughness is usually about a matter of long-term endurance. Obviously, it can be for different applications than that, but I tend to think when you're using that term, it's about things like making weight over the course of a week dieting going to training whenever you're all the things that require you to do them consistently

rather what i think of when i think about fighters who say that is yes they're tough and they're mentally tough but more it's um it's a function of risk management and what are what and how that risk management is informed by what things are important for them. What are your goals? What are, what do you want to achieve? Under what conditions do you want to achieve them? What is acceptable? What is not acceptable? And they just make a calculation that for the reasons that they may articulate honor, blah, blah, blah.

Their risk assessment tells them that that's something that they should allow. I would consider that a pretty fucking warped risk assessment, but I understand that I don't fight for a living, and they do. And maybe we shouldn't say that's necessarily a good thing, but that it's just inevitable someone's going to have an idea like that if they're doing this occupation for a living. Not in every case, but in a lot of cases, which is why you hear it pretty frequently. If the UFC started doing weigh-ins on fight day, how do you think it would affect weight cutting? It would make it fucking, it would make a disaster. It'd be super fucking dumb to do that.

Keep doing boxing. I've enjoyed getting into a new sport. Yeah, well, it's not necessarily new, but I'm glad to do it. And I know some of the people don't like it, but we like it. Like the NBA, China has had a huge impact on what can be said and even done in the league. Do you think the Chinese market will interfere with the UFC in the future? Yeah, no doubt about it. This has happened to everyone. We all thought we would go there and bring open markets, and that would undo authoritarian forms of government. And it's actually quite the opposite. So the authoritarian forms of government have co-opted the free markets as a way to grow and aggregate the power of the state and to use it for the early intended effects.

It doesn't work at all. And it's not just China leaning on the NBA, any kind of foreign company doing business over there. They have found unique ways to lean on and make concessions of Apple. They've done this with, you know, the list is certainly HSBC. They've done that. I mean,

it goes on and on. I'll say HSBC is a little bit different, given the name. But they have a significant Western presence as part of their business. And so I just mean in that sense, any business coming or going from there that has a lot of Western Hollywood studios going through and having Chinese ownership. There's all kinds of demands and bows that go through with it. Anybody who wants to do business there, they're going to, they're going to make you kiss the ring. Some more than others. Some, you may not really ever feel, you may not notice too much, but to the extent that again, right, you want to do business in China, you have to do a business that they approve of. Well, if they don't approve of it,

you're not going to do it, period. And if they care enough anyway. So, so far, to my knowledge, I don't know what that would be for UFC. I don't know where they would get sideways or what they'd be looking for, but rest assured if the UFC would like to, and for really any business, and this is really complicated because obviously China is a critical component in the global supply chain for any number of things. It's hard to pull yourself out of that supply chain to make, as a consumer, for example, ethical consumer decisions. It makes it quite difficult. But that's not the same thing about going into business there. The trade-off that they're making is the ethical trade-offs that they'll have to make are they think and they assess as pretty small. The consequence for them, if you get them right, will be limited.

And the upside is the customer base. What do you think about the idea of there being a media darling fighter? And do you believe it has repercussions, positive and negative, for fighters to be labeled as that either by promotion or by fans? I don't know to what extent the labeling is done. I mean, obviously there are some, but I don't know that it's that big and pronounced. But do I think that there are fighters that the media gets enamored with and overblows time to time? Or quite the opposite, that just misses and doesn't pay attention in the way that they should? And that I have done this in either direction? Yes, of course.

It's a very real thing. I don't know what the solution is because the only people wanting this job are people who are fans and then convert themselves, for the most part, into media. It seems inevitable that you're going to get this kind of dynamic. How do you think Fury versus Joshua is going to go? I think Fury is going to fuck him up. It may be a little bit more cautious than I'm giving credit because obviously Joshua packs a huge punch and can be patient. And when he's locked in,

we've seen how he can get on his bike and not really put himself in bad positions if he doesn't have to. And so for those reasons, you might see equally, like the Klitschko versus Fury fight is not good. He wins, but it's not like a really interesting affair. It's just kind of what it is. And it could be like that, but I tend to think eventually Fury's going to break through his defenses and absolutely

overwhelm him in their prime what fight would you rather watch GSP Silva or Silver Jones GSP Silva that was the one to make do you think the built in storyline regarding Masvidal's higher chance Jones. GSB Silva. That was the one to make. Do you think the built-in storyline regarding Masvidal's higher chance of success against Usman

with a full training camp is that convincing? It's the only one you could really use. I understand it's especially appealing to casual fans, right, or hardcore Masvidal fans, true, but for relatively unbiased hardcores, I don't see it meaning much. Oops, excuse me.

Wrong one. Here we go. I wonder if his skill set is essentially already too set to make a significant difference on the outcome of this fight. In general, yes. In general, yes. I tend to think that the first fight and the second fight will probably look relatively similar. You have to ask yourself, what would Masvidal do differently? People say, oh, he didn't have a good training camp.

Okay, so let's imagine that he does. What would go differently? Show me in a fight, it's hard to show you, but tell me, rather, what you believe would be significantly different. And there are ways to imagine more consistent effort with the guard, creating scrambles, getting to his feet. But in general, what

is there that would lead you to believe that he could consistently keep Kamaru off of him? And when I say Kamaru off of him, I mean Kamaru pressing into him on top and on the ground. And not like doing huge damage. Maybe doing huge damage, but I'm not even... Forget that. Just maybe doing enough to get a little bit of damage in here,

a lot of control, and just winning that way. What would you see in there that would make you believe that? Especially if you look at the totality of his career and it led to that point. It's certainly achievable. You'd be very foolish to count out Jorge Masvidal. But to me, the idea that there's a lot of, it's a really compelling argument, I don't believe that. In your opinion, what MMA fighters have the best trash talk during interviews to have a fight, whether it's a work or a shoot? I'm the wrong motherfucker to ask. And don't get me wrong on occasion.

You know, I like a little trash talk too. It's a little fun, but like day to day, you could, it's, it's, you know, it's fun to watch a car crash, I guess, but I don't, yeah, it's not what I'm looking for. Uh, what do you think is the reason that boxers hit their peak at an earlier age than MMA fighters? 32 in boxing years is ancient.

It's a little on the strong side. I'd actually say 32 is still pretty prime-ish. Whereas in MMA, it's smack in the middle of their peak. That's also true. Partly, I think it's a selection of athletes.

They're not as good as boxing's overall. Remember, boxing draws all over the world in a huge amount of weight classes and countries across religions and continents. And yes, MMA has really made massive growth in terms of the expansive reach, but not to the level that boxing has. Obviously, a bit of a head start. So it's going to have more in that sense. I also think the best practices are much more well-defined.

So there's a ceiling on how much you can really innovate. There is some to that, but not a whole lot. I also tend to think that the way in which boxing is, that it doesn't have too much chaos in it. If you see someone losing the first six rounds, comebacks happen, but chances are they're going to lose the next six as well. And so if they get to a bad spot in the eighth, you can just call it, right?

So I think those tend to be the biggest reasons. There might be some other ones, whereas some of the other factors that go into MMA, grappling, wrestling, the distance in which you spend a part, that they may confer benefits for fighters who age? Not that they get better as they age, but they don't detract as much while they age

and they can remain just as competitive and sometimes peak late in their 30s, which we've seen now at heavyweight and light heavyweight. It's a great question. Those tend to be some of the things that I think about most when I try to answer that question. Those are the things I look at. But to be clear, there's

probably a ton of answers to that effect. Let me see if I can do one or two more. Given the recent rise of anti-Asian sentiment in America, how do you think fans in attendance at 261 will react to the return of Chinese champion Zhang Weili? Do you think the UFC

will need the extra precautions with regard to security or broadcast censorship? Well, they're not exactly going to the world's most enlightened place, which is Florida. Sorry, Florida. But you all know I'm not playing games.

I mean, I've been to Florida. I've been to Jacksonville. You know. The first thing that comes to mind when people are like, when I say the words Jacksonville, Florida, what's the first thing that comes to mind? No one goes, you know what? Enlightenment.

No one says that. So, okay. But I generally tend to think that these are revered figures for the most part. She is not some kind of troll of American values while being Chinese. She just seems to be a nice person who's Chinese. I tend to think that fight fans really respect her for the most part. I'm not especially

worried. You know, are you going to get the wayward, stupid-ass comment? Oh, I remember when Carano fought, was it Kedzie? And I was there for that show. I mean, you would have thought someone was narrating their porn in their head as they just yelled it out loud when I was sitting there.

There were like four or five rows behind me. I was like, wow, you guys are really, you need to be lobotomized because you're a terrible human. All right, let's do one more. Oh, the last one. I have to do it. Okay. I've been missing my mom lately, this person writes. She passed due to drug addiction.

Well, I'm incredibly sorry to hear that. I'm sure you still miss your mom, of course. How do you commemorate her? Partly I try to live the values out that I was taught, whether those are things as simple as like culinary values, right? Um, I grew up eating a lot of things that my mom made that were a function of her upbringing in, uh, Beirut.

So we, you know, we, not anymore, but we do have a lot of hummus in the house, but we, you know, we would eat traditional, uh, Lebanese fare a lot. Um, and inform my worldviews about what kinds of foods, what kinds of cuisines and what their benefits are and what the Mediterranean cuisine tends to offer from both a satiety and health perspective and enjoyment perspective as well. Like all those things, like food is, you know, is a deep enriching ingredient in all of our, our cultural lives. And so that's a big part of it. You know, living out the lessons that they teach you, whatever the individual ones may be, any cultural traditions that you continue

as a function of them, that's them living on through you. That's how these things stay alive. Not so much the people that we love, but the traditions that they teach us or the values that they impart. The only reason that they ever live is because you make them live by virtue of how they get handed down from one to the next. In terms of like any rituals, do I do things? No, I don't really do things like take days off or whatever. But I've gotten tattoos. I live the lesson she taught

and that's the best that I can do. All right, all right. Give the video a thumbs up. Subscribe. Sorry it's late. I appreciate y'all watching. Till next time.