MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Usman vs. Covington 2 | Bellator 263 | Stipe Miocic | Conor McGregor | Ep 185

Episode Date: July 28, 2021

On Episode 185 of MK, Luke Thomas and Brian Campbell break down Kamaru Usman vs. Colby Covington 2. What are their thoughts on the rematch (11:00)? Bellator 263 is this weekend with arguably the biggest fight in the promotions history Patricio Pitbull vs. A.J. McKee. What are the biggest storylines heading into Bellator 263 (23:45)? Stipe Miocic is unhappy with the UFC matchmaking and Francis Ngannou is upset about not being protected from questionable judging. What is the right move here (46:05)? Conor McGregor made some nasty comments about Khabib Nurmagomedov's father... Has he gone too far again (65:30)? Bellator announce that Douglas Lima with Face Michael Venom Page at Bellator 267. 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

You hear that? Ugh, paid. And done. That's the sound of bills being paid on time. But with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card, paying your bills could sound like this. Yes! Earn rewards for paying your bill in full and on time each month.

Rise to rewards with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card. Terms and conditions apply. Reveille, reveille, dogs. Look at us now, tip to tip. This is our life. This is our passion. That's the spirit we bring to this show. I'm Luke Thomas.

I'm Brian Campbell. This is Morning Combat. Back like a bad habit on the 28th of July 2021. Hello everyone. It is time for Morning Combat. I am merely one half of your hosting duo. My name is Luke Thomas. I'm from CBS Sports and Showtime. I join you from your nation's capital in Los Estados Unidos. But I have royalty with me. He is the king of CT. That's Connecticut.

He might be the king of CTE as well. One never knows, but he's my friend and yours. It's Brian Campbell. Hi, Brian Campbell. Hi, Luke. I will agree with you and say that's who the fuck I am right there. The king of CT or the king of CTE? Well, whatever you want me to be, all right?

I am whatever you say I am, Luke. And if I wasn't, then, hey, I switched around my office again, so I got to update the posters behind me. But new look, same old show, all right? Yeah, it's a little off-centered here. All right, we're trying our best over here at Team Campbell. But I'm back. It's Wednesday.

It's hump day, Luke. We're going to spin that stupid wheel again. Talk some fight news. All right. All right. Hold on. I want to, Corey, if you can, I want to focus in on this poster that's on the right shoulder of, okay, BC, did you really put a poster on your wall with a thumbtack? The Mayweather poster? Well, I did because I had it in a frame and the frame was getting too much glare off the light, Luke,

and then the frame broke, and then eventually I just thumbtacked it. You can judge me all you want, Luke, but... I'm going to judge you for that. You can get away with that when you have a lava lamp and you're drinking 40s when you're 20. You're an old man now. You've got to put frames on this shit, bro.

I know what you make. You can afford nice frames. People know this. Frames don't work with the lights, bro. Okay? So you got to take the frame out, the plastic part out, and then suddenly you're compromising

the edges of the poster. It's a battle, Luke. Okay? It's a war. But people don't want to hear... Yo, you know, a chickie later. Girls don't want to hear that shit, Luke.

Okay? They want to hear fight talk. All right? BC, your favorite poster in your studio is what? You know, right now I'd have to say it actually is the web screen produced 1917 poster with my face on the main character's name. Because, Luke, I look at our battle for respect

and to take over the world in this combat sports talk show space. And, you know, convincing the public this ain't no talk show. This is a sitcom, bro, okay? This is something that you need. Sometimes I feel like the plot to 1917, it's a two-man impossible journey. And, you know, like that movie, spoiler alert, the more supposedly dominant fellow you know he perished early luke and you know one day that might be you but even if you should fall luke i will carry this flag to the top of the mountain so that right now is my favorite poster but you know i got the mayweather

mosley who are you picking one that's that's not bad luke okay that's not bad bro all right fair enough uh we got a lot to get to today we have some news about a ufc main event hello bellator 263 fight week is in full swing we'll get you ready for that plus we got a lot some other news and notes a little bit of boxing some injuries everything all the way related so please give the video a thumbs up and hit subscribe as you can see there's the bellator 263 lower third but we are everywhere on social media bc and i have slightly different names between twitter and instagram but morning combat is consistent across the board and if you're new here welcome we do this three times a week this will be the wednesday show uh bc if you want to off today because uh one of our favorite staff

members suffered death in the family and i tried to lighten the mood with a with a humorous text and it fell i mean it fell luke it fell like a grown man shitting his pants in a church pew. I mean, it just did not hit, Luke. So I feel very bad about that. Fair enough. Okay, it was a little bit flat, but you know, there's always the rebound.

That's what life is really about, BC. It's the rebound. So if you want to email us, well, today we're going to get two fan submissions, but then obviously on Friday we'll do Dead Wrong, morningcombat at gmail.com. That's the place to send all of your emails. By the way, if you want

to try Showtime so you can see Bellator 263 this weekend, very easy to do that. You just go to showtime.com, get a 30-day free trial. If you like it, you can keep it. If not, you can go do something stupid with your money because that's a great investment that's easy to make. As well, another smart investment that we're not really showing off, BC, but it is true. You can go to morningcombat.store and you can get merch. You can get all kinds of stuff there

that we're pretty lukewarm about. You're going to like the way it looks on you. Somebody guarantees it, Luke. We do have worldwide shipping. It's great shit. we got new designs coming out hopefully Luke I mean we'll see we'll see what happens alright what am I forgetting BC anything else

oh the interviews are still going strong the Patricio Pitbull resume review came out yesterday and of course everyone's making jokes about curse this curse that but I really feel like BC we did Patricio Pitbull some justice with the length of that I want to thank the team I know Mikey and the folks at Malka did a lot of work to pull all the pieces of footage that we alluded to and then paste it on

top there that's hard to do they took a lot of time so I'm very grateful and if you haven't watched it yet please please please go check that out they did their job Luke and they did it well so I'm very happy with that check out our our also lingering interviews with the great Freddie Roach, Corey Sanhagen, who Luke sat down with late Monday for a fantastic chat. Luke, can you tease that at all? I mean, can you tell the people what they're going to get with that? Yeah. You know what? I was going to save a little bit of this for the live chat, but I'll say it now, which is that, you know, folks are like, oh, you know, it's, it must be hard to get an interview with a guy after a loss, but I didn't do it that way. I actually hit him up before the fight,

and I said to him, hey, I would like to talk after the fight. He said, no problem. Then he lost. Listen, man, I'm at a stage in my career where if you expect fighters to talk to you on professional obligation, sometimes they will. That can work, but I find that you get very bad interviews that way. I don't want to talk to anybody who doesn't want to talk to me for the most part. So I even said to him, I'm like, look, man, if you want to back out,

like no hard feelings, I get it. He decided he wanted to stick with it, answer the questions, go through with it, which I think takes a lot of guts, and I know probably wasn't a lot of fun. So I commend him on that, and I think we got a better interview as a consequence. Plus, dude, it's just nice to see fighters be able to talk about wins and losses calmly. A lot of times you get a lot of anger and resentment, and he's feeling some of those things, but I thought he was still pretty analytical the whole time.

Not everybody's tough enough to do that, Luke. That's why you and I are so put out there on Fridays that we're going to do dead wrong. We're going to take those L's and be very calm about it and not say anything bad about the people that are calling us out. So I can understand that stance. And also, Luke, people can check out the Damien the Donk from the 209 interview still available on YouTube. And Luke, have you got a little chuckle at all about Crazy Tattoo Damien's

ongoing Twitter feud with John Nash right now? It is interesting entertainment at best, right? I've not paid even a single bit of attention to it. I've not listened to that video that he put out. I couldn't tell you anything about it. Okay. Thank you. It looks like I couldn't tell you the names of our staff members either. I don't give a shit.

I'm in this alone, okay? 1917 for life, brother. Thank you. Listen, there's only one person in this world you can rely on. It's the man looking back in the mirror, which is sad news for me and for many others, but it is the reality. All right. With that in mind, BC, we have a show to get to. So let's get it going here. Topic number one, not the biggest topic of the day. The biggest one will be Bell Tour 263 storylines. We'll get to in just a second, but it is breaking-ish news that I wanted to get to first, BC. Kamaru Usman versus Colby Covington 2,

according to Brett Okamoto of ESPN, Dana White tells him, November 6th, and they're looking to get it, it seems, at Madison Square Garden, which means there's a good chance you and I will be there, BC. Of course, they met for the first time, as folks know, at UFC 245 in December of 2019, which had scorecards all over the place. One was 2-2 heading into the fifth.

One was 1-3. One was 3-1. And of course, there's something of a controversial stoppage. I don't think it's all that controversial, but Kamara was winning the fifth round pretty handily. Okay, Usman is ranked, obviously, unranked because he's the champion, and I think Covington is ranked 2 or 3. BC, your reaction

to the UFC in some people's minds leapfrogging Leon Edwards to run it back with Colby do you think that was the right choice you know it's the right choice commercially and I'm not surprised at all because Dana has been so steadfast this whole journey in saying that he loved the shit out of that first fight look rightfully so right i mean i don't think it necessarily got the fight of the year loved it deserved it was a uh stand-up war no takedown attempts on either side and they you know war of attrition they bit down and they went after it and as we already know luke that's that's what dana's here for he's here for that kind of stuff so you know he's going to reward a guy in Covington who markets himself and is willing to fight that style on the highest level.

Is Leon Edwards more deserving? Absolutely. But that's where we're at, Luke, okay? And it's going to be a big one, and you have to respect that Dana's going all out in not only wanting to make this fight next, loving this fight, but putting it at MSG, which, Luke, still matters to me. First of all, having grown up just an hour and 20 minutes from msg myself that arena still matters to me when people say world's most famous arena i get goosebumps because everything i've seen in that building luke

from nba playoff games to concerts or whatever it's just it's just jacked up just a little bit more so is this the perfect fight for that venue tell you what it don't suck that you know this this this will work luke and this will be a fun-ass fight will the build-up be be cringetastic probably but uh luke if they are going to bite down and go to war again which i'm not convinced necessarily that they will with the same single-minded determination they had the first time around where there was almost this gentleman's agreement not to shoot because we want to find out who's tougher either way luke will you not be entertained of course you will okay the masvidal rematch yeah money grab this is a halfway there money grab you know it's also a great fight and a top contender maybe not the most deserving

but a top contender in covington um i'm fired up for it luke i want to be there do you think though that the style the way this fight will break out will look dramatically different at all from the first one or really be a carbon copy in your eyes carbon copy probably not but um it will be interesting to to see i want to answer that question in just a second the first thing i would say is i mean i think this debate's a little bit worn out, but it is just disingenuous of MMA media to spend a lot of time writing about how Colby Covington's not a draw. And to be clear, he's not some A-level draw. That part is true. But here you have a case where he's very clearly not the most deserving guy in the weight class,

and he got the fight because he's the bigger name. I mean, he has developed his name to at least such a degree and has promoted rivalries to such a degree that he becomes the smarter commercial choice for the organization. You have to say that out loud. I know a lot of folks don't want to give him credit for that, and that's fine if you don't, like in the sense that you don't like his shtick. I don't like his shtick either, but there's a lot of time spent denying his place either as a talent or as a draw. And again, there's limits to both of those. But if Leon Edwards is going to get passed over for somebody, there's a reason for that.

And it's not just because I think the fight would be better, although that's part of it. It's also because, dude, he's going to draw a lot more eyeballs to this. You should say that out loud. So I am. That's the first thing I'd say. The second thing I'd say is part of the reason he got it was the one I just alluded to. If you look at the first Usman-Covington fight and then the first Usman-Edwards fight, the Usman-Covington fight is just a million times better. Now, to your point, BC, will it be the same the second time around?

I've been doing a lot of thinking about this. I mean, I remember Covington even saying, I think after the Usman and the first Masvidal fight, that he was surprised at some of the wrestling success that Usman, excuse me, that Masvidal had either defensively or offensively along the way. He was like, you know what, I'm going to take some lessons from that and maybe try and take them down or, you know, mix it up a little bit more. So I do think you're going to see at least more wrestling attempts from Colby. The operative question is, is it going to work? And if it doesn't, he's got to strike with him on the feet. And the reality about this is, dude, Usman is a much, much better striker than even the first time that they fought.

He is just much more accurate. His combinations are better. His distance is better. So if you're Covington, I do think BC, there's going to be be at least more attempts at wrestling but I don't know if they're going to work and if they're not this is a much more difficult fight for him than even the first time well look I just established that I like this fight a lot better than the second Masvidal fight which you know what no one is it was ever discounting Jorge's puncher's chance in that one but it felt like a we don't really need this right now,

we know why it's happening thing. Do you think, though, that there's, even though we expect Covington to be more competitive in the second one than Masvidal was in his second chance, that it's still in that same category? Meaning, you just alluded to the fact that Usman might be, like, a lot better than he was the time he fought Covingvington in Las Vegas his striking has evolved so much the work uh with the new trainer just absolutely brilliant stuff that's coming out of that camp with with uh coach Whitman I don't know

if I've seen that same level rapid improvement no I haven't in Covington's game so I'm wondering if in hindsight Luke will we may end up looking at this like we look at the Masvidal one now. I mean, it helps that, you know, Usman got him out of there with one punch in such vicious fashion. We're like, holy shit, this guy really is your pound for pound king. I mean, Usman is the damn real deal. I know it's, you know, a couple months away. We're not previewing or breaking down the fight. But do you think there's any chance this could end up being a one-way traffic type deal for Musma on the second time around?

And we look back and go, oh shit, that was UFC kind of cashing out the elite version of Colby like they just did with Jorge. I think there's a very real possibility, a very real possibility. Now, again, I wouldn't want to deny Colby the reality of his championship possibilities either, but he was calling for a rematch pretty early into that one and complaining about the stoppage that Mark Goddard executed in the first fight. And I think if he had gotten it pretty close to that time,

the conversation would be a little bit different. But since that first fight, Usman has shown a lot more growth. Now, we've seen him more times. we've not seen Colby all that many I think we're just two times since then if that um so you know he's and yes he looked good certainly and in fact he beat Woodley in his last one with the wrestling in a way that um perhaps you thought he might strike with him and that was dominant enough to matter like I take the abilities of Colby Covington very, very seriously, and I think everyone else should.

However, I also feel like what we know, and this could be limited, but what we know is that Usman is dramatically different and much, much better in ways that took what he was already good at and made them even sharper weapons. It's not like he got a bunch of new weapons, BC. He just got the things that he was good at and really cleaned it up and polished it and made it much more efficient and accessible. And I think that's going to be... Listen, Father...

I have a hunch. No one really knows. I have a hunch that Father Time is probably going to be Kamaru Usman's biggest challenge. But obviously, Colby Covington has something to say about that. All right. Fair enough, Luke. Okay. Hey, what a year to be an MMA fan, okay? And by the way, I don't know what's going to happen between now and November. Everyone does.

I really hope this fight is at MSG. It's good for you. It's good for me. It's good for the game. I think it'd be a really big fight if they can make it happen. Let's just knock on wood that whatever's happening with COVID doesn't make everything go back to the apex. I mean, look, this Saturday's card, which, let's be honest, was one of the worst on paper of these in-between UFC fight nights, and we get enough great stuff that it's hard to really hammer them. But look, Uri Hall versus Sean Strickland, just not moving it for a lot of us.

It's losing fights left and right. Are you, as a day one-ish Luke Fauci superfan here, the great doctor? I've never said one kind word about Anthony Fauci, ever. Not once. You've never heard me say that. There's a lot of people on my Facebook timeline wearing Fauci lied t-shirts, Luke.

Okay, that's their preference. But my question to you is, Luke. Well okay uh you know do you have fears uh not just for the for the world but uh the fact that sports again UFC elite boxing all that by the end of this year we could be in trouble I know this isn't the place some people Luke some people in the podcast space are tired of your political slants and rants how is it political to talk about a virus that could that independent of your choice or my choice could shut this down like i think you have to acknowledge it at least exists or at least the possible here's what i'll say it's too impossible to predict there are places like florida that where shit is blowing up and i don't know what's going to happen there there's a lot of

states where there's nothing really going on. So my hope is that everything is fine. I just think for folks like, oh, I don't even want to think about it. I'm like, well, no one really wants to think about it. I don't want to think about it either. But we live in a world where we just can't ignore the possibility. It could happen. How likely?

We'll see when we get there. I don't know. I hope to God that it doesn't happen. Like the great Mark Ramondi once told Dana, it's a legitimate question luke okay that's it that's it it's just a legitimate question but what happens from here on out i don't know i don't know what's gonna happen i just i would it would be sad if we lost it i'm just i'm just saying that let me just clean that to give me take me 60 seconds clean people are just hating on me from monday show you know bc couldn't score an m fight if he was, you know, sitting at a boxing match.

Guys, okay? I may have, you know, maybe not fully represented my view in a way that you can bite down on, but damage will always be the lead scoring criterium in any combat sports fight. What I was saying, which Luke was also kind of saying, is when damage is not the lead overwhelming thing to score, I would like MMA scoring to take a little bit more serious the other potential categories. Yes, some that we do see in boxing that term MMA fans don't know and hate, ring or cage

generalship. So what I'm saying is, Sanhagen landed the better strikes, but was his quote-unquote damage in some of these close rounds overwhelming enough that he has to win the round? Because of that, that's where my debate came in. That's where I opened the door for TJ to win that fight. That's what it is, okay? Go sit on a cactus. All right, that's fine.

Go ahead. Luke, I'm a little salty today, all right? I'm sorry. I see that. I see that. Well, I'll just say we're not in in total agreement but we're in principle in agreement because this idea of of uh impact and and more you know in a more colloquial way damage being this determinant about who wins the striking a sometimes that can be hard to parse right that's

the first thing the The other part is, I still feel like the judges have been told, okay, effective grappling is only X. Positions shouldn't carry the same kind of significance without some kind of an accompanying factor, which I think in principle is right. But then when you ask them to adjudicate that, they undersell it in certain ways and then oversell it in other ways. And it's still inconsistently applied fight to fight, which is true of any rule. I'm just saying that one can't be forgotten. So there's a debate to be had there for sure.

I got those DMs that say, how stupid could BC be? He's trying to score a fight on rules that aren't even there. Well, so are those judges, okay? Because they seem to be showing their own strike zones of late. So really that's the reference point in the debate I'm trying to open up. But all good. Love our people, Luke. Let's carry on.

Fair enough. So let's go to point number two here, and let's kick off what is, to me, you know, listen, Bellator's card is better than UFC's card this weekend, and it's not especially close. Now, granted, the UFC card is not very good. In fact, I wouldn't call it bad, but it's not good. And the Bellator card is very good, even with the loss, unfortunately, of the Mega Man, Mega Madoff, and Rafael Stott's fight. BC, one note before we dig into the main event.

I just want to point this out. I didn't notice until another buddy of mine who fought in Bellator and won pointed this out to me. Opening the prelims on Saturday night is a guy by the name of Justin Barry. He's taking on someone who's called Daniel Compton. Daniel Compton is four and three, so not a great record, but he's got seven pro fights. This will be the pro debut of Justin Barry.

Why do I bring this up? Justin Barry was maybe my favorite training partner for years here in Washington, D.C. He moved, I think, to Florida to get his master's degree in computer programming and then ended up in California. I'm not sure. I think he's training at Alliance. I'm not really sure exactly where he's at, but we talk a little bit on Instagram. Justin Barry, nobody kicked my ass more than Justin Barry, and he made it look fucking effortless, but he also

made me a lot better than I ever would have been were it not for him. I'm talking about a guy. I don't know how good he is now. But let me tell you, in the training room, this guy fucking beat everybody. Unless it was like a way higher belt or something. He would just run through people. And he was not only naturally talented, he was an absolute workhorse. He was always in the gym.

Always either drilling or studying or sparring or just observing. He was an absolute animal. I am very excited to see him make his pro debut. I don't know what his ambitions are, but keep an eye out for Justin Barry. It will open the card on Saturday, and I have a tremendous, tremendous amount of respect for his abilities. So be on the lookout for that. However, BC. Let's just see, Luke. Is he related to Pat Barry at all?

No. Justin Barry is, well, uh first of all he's black and i don't think pat barry is and uh second of all i think it's just a similar last name or the same last name anyway but okay okay we start with the main card bc at least the main event patricio pitbull taking on aj mckina we laid this out in the resume review in grand detail but it is worth thinking about bc the one key way to understand this bout true or false the key way to understand no pun intended so to speak between pitbull and aj mickey is it's the past slash present of bellator versus maybe the future of bellator true or false yeah? Yeah, no, absolutely true.

So here's what I love about this fight, the stakes. And I think some people understand the stakes, but it goes even deeper than that. It's for the featherweight title. It's for the finals of this great 16-man tournament. It's for the $1 million prize, which certainly doesn't suck. It's for pound-for-pound number one in Bellator.ator but luke you and i in doing many different types of previews for this fight some of the stuff that's available now some of the stuff still to

come have identified that one thing it's also potentially a passing of the baton of new versus old like you said but luke the reason why we say this fight might be the best fight in Bellator history or the biggest stakes, not the most commercially viable, but the biggest ever, is because, Luke, I cannot remember, and correct me here if I'm just sleeping on something, a fight where literally you have the number one guy in a promotion's history against a guy who, with a win like literally could steal everything he has with a win if AJ McKee goes to 18 and 0 becomes your featherweight champion in Bellator becomes Bellator's number one pound for pound fighter it's too early to say he's the greatest fighter in Bellator history but

if he goes out there convincingly beats the guy that we're all like hell yeah he's the greatest fighter in Bellator history it's gonna be hard giving AJ McKee special circumstances and how he was groomed and came up only under the Bellator flag to not consider him the best fighter the promotion has ever had. When you start off your career going 18-0 and you go in this tournament and just rip through people and if he can have the same level of ease, which no one expects him to have ease against Pitbull, but if he can go in there and win convincingly. Luke, when was the last time you saw a fight in which there was that much of a potential handoff?

It's not like we've seen aging pay-per-view star against pay-per-view star of the future. And if the younger guy wins, which the younger guys typically do, you understand what you're handing off there. But even though Pitbull's older, 34, he's not, you know, he's not old. So are we right to look at it this way, Luke, that if McKee wins, I mean, he's the face of Bellator, past, present, and future. I've never seen stakes like this in one single fight before. No, you're 100% right like you said

and we went back into the archives and talked about everything I've been covering Bellator literally since their first event I remember it very distinctly and there's no equivalent yes there might be better fighters in the world but there's no equivalent in the way that you framed

it in UFC or really anywhere else why because one to see someone this but there's no equivalent in the way that you framed it in UFC or really anywhere else. Why? Because, one, to see someone this tenured in an organization is not necessarily rare, but it's not common either, right? So you have this sort of setup with Patricio Pitbull. But there's two things I would add on top of that. First, it took time to figure out, like when you asked the question, who's the best fighter in Bellator history, before it was kind of wishy-washy. There was really no way to answer that because you could get Ryan Bader coming over and he's got two belts, but he's barely been there, you know?

And before Patricio became Patricio, we've talked about it. His whole story is accumulated greatness. So it got to a point where he was the runaway choice. But before that, you couldn't even have this question about the best fighter in Bellator history versus X or Y. It's the first thing I'd say. So it took a while for him to get that status. But AJ McKee is really the story here because all of his fights have taken place inside of Bellator. Now, Bellator is not UFC. UFC is not Bellator, for better and for worse. But one thing that Bellator has, and I made this point with Dylan Danis, God knows what he's doing with his life, except calling out people on Twitter and then not fighting them. But the reality is with Bellator has, and I made this point with Dylan Danis, God knows what he's doing with his life, except calling out people on Twitter and then not fighting them. But the reality is with

Bellator, they have a capacity to both entertain the higher end of the game and the lower end of the game. When I say low end, I don't mean like bad per se, but just literally brand new to the professional ranks. They can offer a home to somebody who wants to make their pro debut, who is two and one, who is 5-0, something like that. Whereas UFC, we talked about how they're not good at saying goodbye to their elder statesmen who are no longer able to compete. It's also not hospitable for somebody to make their pro debut there. We've seen it. People have tried it.

Even Brock Lesnar didn't make his pro debut there. Even he had the one before he got there. It's very, very difficult to be in the UFC if you're not ready to be in UFC. Well, Bellator is a little bit different. It's a little bit more expansive. So what you've had is this guy with accumulated greatness in Patricio Pitbull became somebody that the organization even previously couldn't have crowned anyone. He's really the first guy to ever hold that mantle Best fighter in organizational history Simultaneously, 17 fights

You've had a guy grow up 100% under the roster of Bellator And has blossomed into what you see today This is extremely unusual in mixed martial arts To get a pairing like this And BC, they just so happen to be the finalists from a tournament man i'm sorry like you just can't script storylines this way it's extraordinarily rare let me frame it like this for mckee and we're focusing on mckee because he has more to gain certainly i mean but you know pitbull has a lot to gain by beating a kid this great and winning this tournament yes but pitbull's

your true division champion face of the franchise is McKee everything if he wins this fight what Aaron Pico was supposed to be and still might be although through some many hiccups but was supposed to be and what I mean by that Luke is you remember when Brett Okamoto first started writing features on Aaron Pico it was like he was the guy you know putting that stuff that went in the headlines the greatest the brightest prospect in MMA history and you look at Bellator's story and trying to get out in front of the Aaron Pico business they were bankrolling him as a high schooler preparing you know knowing his strengths and all all the categories and preparing for him eventually signing on and fighting with this promotion I mean this has been a relationship Luke that's gone back a long time now there's been enough hiccups where we don't exactly know how the Aaron Pico story is going to end. I think he'll end up winning a championship, a major championship. I think he has figured some

things out. We don't know. McKee is kind of playing out his career, Luke, like we all thought, and like Scott Coker probably thought Aaron Pico would. So in that regard, we talk a lot about Bellator's identity, and sometimes their identity is, for a while it was freak fights, sometimes it's signing aging UFC free agents, but they've really tried to bring back a grassroots focus, and I think we're certainly seeing that now with the rise of guys like Amosov and Nemkov, and guys that didn't necessarily start in Bellator day one,

but made their name as Bellator champions, really, McKee has the chance to be the greatest success story Bellator ever could have hoped for. And that really says something, because when you're trying to compete, and you said UFC isn't Bellator, Bellator isn't UFC. We all get that. There are times, though, when Bellator can raise to an elite level

where you better believe they are competing with the UFC. For them to have a potential guy that they found raised up that has a chance on Saturday night on Showtime to best the best fighter Bellator's ever had. scenario of taking a guy putting him under your brand and having that guy elevate your brand by how great he becomes pico could still be that but it's not going to be as perfect as mckee has the chance to be i think that's i think that's right i think that you it's it's just so rare to see somebody reach elite status from the pro debut at this moment but i will also say while i do think bc that it's better for Bellator, at least, you know, long-term, if someone like McKee goes in there and beats someone as established as Pitbull, yeah, that's probably better for them over the long haul. I will say this, you still see, we saw it today with Aaron Bronstetter, Patricio is not really fucking around

with this idea that he wants to go win a belt at 135. And I got to tell you, I like his chances if he does. So I'll say this, if McKee wins, I mean, you want to talk about proof of concept of what Bellator can offer. I can't think of a better advertisement for it than what AJ McKee will have done at that point. Conversely, though, if Pitbull wins, I think Scott Coker and Bellator would be committing promotional malpractice if they didn't actually try and make that idea actionable. He's only 5'6", Patricio Pitbull. He can make 135. For your power to carry to 155, where you can grab the belt there, you're the king at

145, and you can make 135. And you look at what the people down there are doing, I think he beats them pretty easily. Dude, that is the first person to win three titles. Pretty easily. Okay, easily. Can you put some respect on Sergio Pettis' name, please? Yeah, I don't think he's in Pitbull's class, man. I really don't.

I think the punching power would be dramatic indifference. So I'll say this. While I do respect what he has done tremendously in beating Juan Archuleta the way he did, incredible, I think you have to take seriously, if Pitbull wins on Saturday, to have someone win three titles and hold them

simultaneously uh in uh one moment dude that you're talking about next level shit with that it's it's a it's not some far-fetched fantasy dude that's a real possibility if he gets his hand raised on saturday what do you think the possibilities are if mckee wins that aj's hopes and dreams would play out where he would then move up to 155 and challenge Patricio for that Bellator title I mean this is me basically wishing a trilogy upon these guys Luke but you know that's also in play for the promotion if they wanted to go that route I couldn't even comprehend what that would mean like to go and beat Pitbull at 145 and then going up to 155 and beating him again.

I suppose it's possible. Anything is possible. Yeah, I don't even know, dude. I haven't given it much thought because I guess it's one fight at a time, even though I'm here sitting and talking about Patricio going to 135. But, dude, that would be, you know, beating Patricio one time is hard enough. Beating him twice across two weight classes, that's impressive. Do you think that's promotional malpractice to try to do that?

Or do you think, you know, let's say AJ beats him at this weight class, then you moved up to 55 and Patricio beat him there, for all we know. I mean, you know, then you got yourself a rivalry and a series and something massive. But you may have that anyway if this fight's great and they want to run it back. But, you know, I don't know. You know, if they let AJ run through Bitbull twice,

you'd also have a star. So there's a lot of good stuff. Hey, good problems to have for Bellator as we roll out of this. But great fight, very good card. You know, very unhappy that the Magomed-Magomedov fight fell apart. But, Luke, you know, there's some pretty good matchups up and down on this card. This feels like the big deal Saturday night at the Forum in L.A.

Let's go through here real quickly if we can I just want to start things off you have Chris Gonzalez taking on Goichi Yamauchi now this was the replacement I think this was supposed to be like the main event of the prelims but then when the Stotts and Magomedov fight fell out they bumped this one up I love this fight Chris Gonzalez a southpaw uh dominant wrestler out of team alpha male undefeated taking on I I would call, something like the Charles Oliveira of Bellator and Goichi Yamauchi. Then you have 19-1 Islam Mamadov taking on Brent Premis. Premis' only loss is to, you can hear my daughter crying, Premis' only loss is to Michael Chandler, which was a hard-fought loss in Hawaii.

Mamadov, I think coming over from PFL, he's a hammer. Usman Nurmagomedov, cousin of Khabib, so maybe Khabib will be in attendance, taking on Manny Morrow. I don't know much about Manny, candidly. But then, in the co-main event, Mads Brunel taking on Emmanuel Sanchez. Emmanuel Sanchez is going to want to pop back to life

after that loss to Pitbull. And Mads Brunel has been a guy who, you know, I think that he made it to the UFC a little bit early in his run. He had less than 10 fights by the time he made his organizational debut there. And he won some and he lost some. But since then, dude,

I think since 2018 in his fight with the Cage Warriors, he hasn't lost since. No, he's seven and 0 since then. Yeah, and he's had two wins in Bellator, both of which has been stoppages, including over Saul Rogers, who's a good fighter. Dude, he's had two wins in Bellator both of which has been stoppages including over Saul Rogers who's a good fighter dude he's he's an excellent talent we know how good Emmanuel Sanchez is that is a phenomenal phenomenal event I'm looking that's a great co-main event and I'm looking forward to seeing what type of fire Emmanuel Sanchez comes back with Luke because you know

we told his story heading into that semi-final rematch with Pitbull and it was like this was the guy that gave Pitbull the hardest time in the initial fight in that most recent title reign and we're like he's got a legitimate chance to go in there and push Pitbull five rounds like he did the first time and have a shot to beat him

and then he got railroaded Luke so he's a great fighter I want to see what type of fire he comes out with against a guy who's so hot and burnell and you mentioned quickly manny murrow luke to i remember that name because he was the guy they brought in to fight nick newell and it ended up being a split decision win for for murrow and they loved his fire so much that they signed him and brought him back and he has uh not lost luke since coming to bellator so he's been looking good and then of course also in the prelims,

Georgie Karakanyan is back against Kiefer Crosby, of course. And then kicking off the prelims, my guy Justin Barry taking on Daniel Compton. So there's a lot. There's a lot to like, and I believe the main card will start on Saturday, 10 p.m. in the east. 10 p.m. in the east is when everything is going to get going. And Luke, although you and i are not there our original plan was to be there we had some hiccups you myself sugar rashad evans

the hall of famer we will be providing an extensive amount of coverage this week on the showtime sports uh social channels on cbs sports hq uh after the fight on Saturday night with instant reaction. It's going to be wire to wire, Luke. Talking press conference, weigh-in, all that good stuff. MK's got you covered. It is MK all day. Basically every day at this point, Luke. This is going to be good stuff for all things

Bellator 263. Last thing I want to say about this is I've seen a lot of iterations of Bellator come and go. Had many conversations with Bjorn Rebney back in the day when he was the guy in charge and then Scott took over in 2014 and they changed and even since Scott's been here they've gone through a number of different alterations and blah blah blah I'm telling you man I'm really struggling to think of a fight this historically important for the organization as we've talked about before BC you know I was there for Kimbo Slice Stata 5000 Kimbo Slice versus Ken Shamrock and those this historically important for the organization. As we've talked about before, BC,

I was there for Kimbo Slice, Stata 5000, Kimbo Slice versus Ken Shamrock, and those were huge, man. I remember the numbers on Spike were just through the roof. He remains. Kimbo Slice is the most popular fighter in Bellator history by a long shot. Okay, fair enough.

But in terms of, forget about the audiences for just a second. In terms of just the nuts and bolts of who's good in this organization and what it means to achieve here and where good guys come from and where they can go, I don't think there's been a fight like this in Bellator history. I really don't. And they've had some epic rivalries.

We talked about Pitbull and Strauss. They had four different times they went after each other. Dude, this is a special one. This is a special one. My only hope, you see, you know, knocking on wood here. I'm literally doing it. No eye pokes, no groin kicks for fuck's sake. Oh, stop that, you.

Don't put that out there. I'm just saying, win or lose, let's make sure that the best man wins. That's my only wish to the MMA gods. Just may the best man win. That's it. Absolutely. And, Luke, we're going to have a few more days this week to get into the X's and O's who wins and why what's this fight is gonna look like I can't wait to have those chats Luke because I can't wait to see what the hell this fight looks like given the styles

of both I want to reiterate one thing Luke we have no idea how great AJ McKee actually is but Pipple is the guy for us to find out so can't wait for that Luke I wanted to get your reaction while we are talking Bell, about the breaking news that the promotion had this week, that October 1st, Bellator returning to the UK, London, I think it's SSE Arena for MVP vs. Douglas

Lima Part 2. Now, Luke, we're always honest about matchmaking and stuff. I do want to call out our boy Scotty Coates. I don't love the rest of this card, but I love... This is topic number five if you want to save it well okay or you know i didn't know it was topic number five look i don't we must have different rundowns luke you know we must but it is topic it is you want to do it we can just do it now go ahead you were you were you had something to say maybe maybe i screwed this up luke it's possible right it's okay well we didn't listen we'll make it a bellator mega topic

go ahead here we go here we go uh october 1st in london lima mvp2 luke i was the guy from the beginning saying this was the fight to make i love this fight i almost like it more when you consider that that mvp who we talk about not getting any younger but continues to dominate against a certain level of competition he's absolutely red hot coming in and Lima who I think we both believe is the better fighter coming off two straight defeats both in title fights in separate divisions so Luke I was disappointed that this card top to bottom isn't blowing me away but this main event is a plus to me fantastic I can't wait to see this. I agree with you. If this was Lima when they first fought,

I didn't think MVP had much of a shot. I'll still favor Lima to win. That being said, the two losses aren't just bad. They're concerning. Here's what I mean. Okay, he lost to a guy up a weight class and even began to put it on him late. However, that guy is also a little bit, I think, on the decline,

at least relative to his peak. And so you had this sort of languid loss where you couldn't really get going. And yes, the fight against Amosov was, you know, not the most entertaining affair, but it was pretty thorough in terms of the way in which they fought all the way through. And another one where he just didn't have any real sense of urgency to fix anything, in part because he probably had a bad weight cut, I think, along with it.

He's getting bigger, he's getting older. Dude, with those two things, if MVP is locked in and can avoid the ground for at least some portion of the fight, seems to be entirely winnable for him maybe that's blasphemy maybe maybe that's crazy to say i don't i don't know we'll have to see in the end but i'll have to say this i i'm much more intrigued in this rematch given where mvp has been which you know is more or less where he's kind of always been but the but the decline of douglas lima recently uh i think makes us a lot more competitive and for those reasons, a lot more intriguing. It's tough to try to figure out where that decline is, how severe it is.

I mean, the Musashi loss, it was just a division up, and he maybe didn't have the right game plan, and he kind of got started a little bit late. But the Amosov loss is eye-opening for a guy who is entering those mid-30s, has been pound for pound relevant and one of those guys that were like you know he's one of the top three four five best guys of his weight class in the world in Lima yet that first fight was pretty exciting before the knockout and Luke say what you will at times about the competition level of MVP but he's won five in a

row since this loss to Lima he's been been absolutely dominant. We were there that week in Mohegan when he was setting up to face Derek Anderson, which was going to be a tough test. Look, he ran right through him. This is an MVP confident, peaking, knowing that he's 34. He's got to make it happen now if he's going to make it happen.

Look, he wins this. You've got to believe he's getting Amosov. This is a must-see TV here. That's a terrible fight for MVP, though. I mean, Amosov would have his way with him, I think. Well, right, but we would have to see MVP do MVP things at an almost reckless level in that fight, right? You'd have to do everything you could to try to discipline Amosov

from shooting on you. You'd have to respond with some spinny shit, some jumping shit. You'd have to be that guy who says, I'm going in there to knock him out early. I'm not going to hang around to be on my back for five rounds, Luke. I want to see that version of Michael Venom Page. All right, fair enough. All right, let's move down to topic number three. There is a UFC card this weekend. We'll get to it probably on Friday, but there are some other UFC headlines, namely some of the heavyweights are unhappy. So first things first one championship put up an instagram post being like who should chatri sign uh chatri sit y'all tongue the the

donk who runs it and steep a miochic replied with a thinking emoji and then later wrote i i shouldn't have to wait for a winner i have the most heavyweight title defenses of all time. We're one and one, talking about Francis. But DC got instant rematches and trilogies against me? Question mark? BC, here's where I come down. It's like, I gotta tell ya, I'm not...

I understand his point. I do. Being like, DC got this treatment. I have a better record in this division. Hello, I got two wins over him. Shouldn't I get the same kind of treatment? Well, here's what I would say. DC shouldn't have got that treatment either. There was too many of those accommodations made for him.

So it sets a bad precedent where now a guy who is technically more deserving doesn't get them. But I don't want to see a bad, they're constantly fighting the same guys over and over again. I got to be honest. I like bad they're constantly fighting the same guys over and over again I gotta be honest I like that they're rotating in some fresh blood to be honest with you yeah I mean you know the current champion Stipe's uh just recently lost to so I get the history I get the name but like you know Francis Ngannou also got absolutely royally screwed Luke

in the past year and a half you know when there should have been an interim title when he was waiting out the Stipe DC rivalry to close so I'm not going to sit here and act like Stipe hasn't been getting given royal treatment it just almost felt at times Luke like UFC's kind of wanted to be done with the Stipe as champion business but you know there's been a lot of sins by the promotion in this division including this new one of this interim title for no freaking reason other than selling tickets in Houston upon this new multi-date deal they just made with the Toyota Center. So, Luke, it's like you could say, okay, so what's the next question? Should it have been Stipe versus Derek for the interim title, Luke?

Would that have made everybody happier? No? No? No, I don't think so. Yeah. Like, this is what I'm saying. You know, these guys who've accomplished a lot, oh, I'm a champion who has five title defenses. I'm, you know, whatever the marker of historical greatness

that they've achieved, they want to turn that into, like, some kind of token that they can themselves resubmit to skip the line and i think we should be deferential to a degree for any fighter in any weight class who has achieved a lot okay and maybe we haven't been that way enough with stipe there's a debate to be had about i think that's fair but i gotta tell you going right back to stipe francis francis three after you get you got viciously KO'd was it first or second? I think it was second round

he got KO'd. He lost badly the first round. You know, I'm sorry. I just don't see a lot of argument for it. And you could say, well, he got knocked out the first time he fought DC and he won two of those in a row. Maybe so. Maybe that's true, but I don't need to see constant

rematches. I don't need to see constant trilogies. Getting in some fresh blood seems to me the best way to go about it. And maybe Stipe is right to sit out and have his contract extended. Up to him. But I'm sympathetic to a degree, BC, but not enough to change the matchmaking in the way that he is wishing. All right, let me ask you a hard question, Luke. I've been called a steep a hater at times in my career no hater here was i late to give him his full flowers maybe is there any part of what steepay has accomplished that's a bit overrated

because of how transient the history of the ufc heavyweight division had been where we hadn't had somebody defend three times in a row before Stipe because Randy Couture was getting stripped or had to give up the belt here and there and because this is a you know heavyweight MMA with four ounce gloves where knockouts happen and guys lose their spots and quickly and while I give Stipe god darn is this guy amazing and have heart and have the will to win and has had these comeback wins and the way that he turned the DC trilogy around. I mean, all that stuff is great, Luke. But is it a bit overrated only because heavyweight doesn't have that long history

of having a consistent guy? I think there's something to be said for that. I think that's part of it, certainly. And also, he doesn't quite have the lead on his peers in a way like demetrius johnson did it flyweight or anderson or saint pierre or john jones there's been a little bit more parody along the way frankly if you're asking me who's the most terrifying heavyweight i've ever seen in mma at their peak the answers came velazquez even though i think obviously estipe has accomplished significantly more over the course of time i think that's part of it but

this is the other part, too. It's like, dude, I don't want any fighter to do anything that they're not comfortable with in promoting a fight. Like, if you want to just be the guy that does just enough media, you keep to yourself, you stay grounded, I think there's a lot of benefit mental health-wise to do something like that. I don't in any way judge them for it. But you've got to understand how the game is played.

Whether you like this fact or whether you don't like this fact, it is a fact. I've said this before. You can pull many levers to get advancements or things you want in the game. And one of those levers you can pull, and to an extent Colby Covington is benefiting from this, is the popularity pull, the controversy poll,

to what extent you have some kind of idealized character that you wish to play or however you want to describe it. He doesn't really invest in that because he doesn't want to. Again, no judgment. Do what you're comfortable with. But if you get to a spot where you're actually looking for matchmaking favors and you've not invested in that and you're only relying on the resume which is strong but again there's other factors at play you can't be a you can't be all that upset when that lever is not there for you to pull you you didn't want it to be there and so now it's not um this was shocking not shocking that stipe would be upset and would be putting it out there

publicly because i'll give him credit he's always done a good job at knowing his value and being open and honest about certain negotiation bullshits and all that so that like that's fine i give him this i'm down with him doing this at the end of the day even if we don't agree even if we don't even if we don't think he has the best point here i'm down with it but luke is the fight to make steepay versus john jones that that really feels like the pay-per-view main event fight to make, right? I'd love to see it. I'd love to see it. I think it'd be great. I think it'd be a great test for both guys. So many knowns about both of them, and yet somehow when you pair them, there's all these unknowns. You actually don't know how some of that's going to look and play

out and even what it would mean necessarily for those reasons. So yeah, I would love to see that contest. And I'm sure that, you know, it's probably been something that's been on the table at one time or another, either for John or for Stipe. But, you know, these guys have such limited options in terms of what's available to them that, you know, it's either a hard yes or a hard no, and there's consequences either way. Speaking of which, BC, we now go to the other UFC heavyweight that's upset, which is Francis Nganou. He tweeted this on Monday, quote, it is interesting how we see injustice done to the fighters by some judges. We talk about it, and then we move on from it the next day, only to get pissed off again when it happens the next time.

The fighter has to go home unrewarded with all that frustration and half their money for a job well done. Something needs to be done for these athletes getting robbed on the scorecards. Hashtag justice for fighters. Your reaction, BC? It's not wrong, right? But, you know, my comeback is always, what are we going to do? Now, you know, in MMA, you have a better chance of fixing this than you do boxing,

which is the Wild West and, you know, so many different state sanctioning bodies and state commissions and all that. I want to feel like it can be easily more easily done in ufc then again ufc is just a promotion dealing with the state commissions who are appointing these referees so i don't know luke i mean it he he's he's talking about it like if a fighter gets screwed and that win could have put them in another financial bracket and some of them may never get the chance to get back to that opportunity. I mean, that sucks.

So do you turn that back on the promotion and just say, let's make sure these guys are paid what they're actually worth so none of that really wouldn't matter in the end, Luke? I mean, I'm of this mind where it's like people think that there's no value to complaining. Well, the value can be limited and especially on social media, it can be super limited, but there is something to be said for it over the course of time, which is, uh, it, listen, I don't know that. Yeah, I'll say this. I think judging has improved over time.

I think there's still a shit ton of problems with it, but it has, it's not as bad as it used to be. And more to the point, it's because of these injustices and the hell that is raised subsequently that there is pressure put on the various stakeholders or the people who have decision-making to make some meaningful improvements around it, whether it's fixing the 10-9-month system in the best way that people can understand it or whatever the case may be. So there's a value to it but it's like and i and i commend francis for constantly raising issues about fighter pay here here it's one thing to be like well you know how do we fix it but you know that he put including like parenthetically

and then half their money when they lose as like that that's a real soft spot or i should say a point of contention for him understandably i think that is for most people who are paying attention. So, you know, I'm of two minds. I think on the one hand, he's right to raise these issues. I think over the course of time, there's an accumulative impact. However, in the short run, just tweeting about it, it's like, I don't know what this is supposed to get you.

Well, you brought up a great point about the UFC pay structure from the standpoint that you get the show and you get the win. You know, you don't see that in boxing, and there's times when you're like, oh, that fighter decided mid-fight, they didn't really have a great chance to win, so they packed it in because guess what? They're still getting paid. We like, as fans,

the urgency that the UFC pay structure gives in that, you know, you gotta go balls out to try to win it. And that's the same reason why people think open scoring could fix some of the judging issues, because even though it's still that judge's perspective, at least the fighters would know what they're up against. How bad do you think the fallout would be if you got rid of the win bonus? Now, I like the win bonus, but that's me being a greedy fan, Luke. You know what I mean?

We see so many times that sometimes even quasi-elite level fighters can barely afford, you know, training camps and top, you know, can barely afford to do it at this level. What do you think the negative fallout would be to eliminate the win bonus and instead having a heftier show uh i tend to think that people misunderstand this a little bit uh on both sides people think that like oh if you i mean listen the argument and the truth is they we should do away with the difference i i'm not i'm not i'm not a supporter of it. The reason why is because the UFC tries to exert influence over their fighters in any number of ways, either before the fights, through contract negotiations about which fights they take and blah, blah, blah, and when and who they say yes to and what it all means and what kind of relationship you have with the organization and the matchmakers and how exciting your fights are. There's all kinds of ways in which there's this pressure that's exerted on them to perform.

The breaking up of the purses is probably somewhat of a cost-saving measure, but also it's just part of that larger effort of exerting influence. In other words, if you pulled it out, there would still be many other factors upon which they would be under pressure to perform, or take fights that they don't want to take, or whatever the case may be. And some of that can be good. By the way, we talked about it before. Fighters are going to say no to fights that maybe they should take. It'd be good for the consumer. It'd be good for the sport, but maybe not necessarily in their interest or in the interest at that time. So I'm in favor of it. I'm in favor of the idea of

removing it and then giving them much larger up front purses. The only thing I would say is, while I don't think that would meaningfully change the way fights go, I don't think someone's necessarily going to fight any less hard because there are consequences, pretty devastating ones to professional losses. But at the same time, I also think folks should recognize you can remove this situation about show and win. UFC is still going to find a lot of different ways to lean on these guys to do things that they wouldn't necessarily upfront sign up for. It's part of creating a culture of expectation from them. Sam Alvey is like the chief example of this where he was arguing against fighter unions.

And he was arguing that the Reebok pay was a little bit lower, but I'm really happy with it. Like just completely compliant with whatever is handed his way. The pay is part of that, but you can fix that. There's still going to be many other influences that are working for UFC's interests. Luke, we've had a lot of talk really really, since you and I have been doing shows together because it's a recurring topic about how to

fix scoring in both combat sports, and you mentioned, you know, do we change the 10-9 system in MMA? Do we do half points? There's so many ideas around the board. I'm really starting to believe that the easiest way to curb atrocious judging

and even in boxing the sometimes um negative stereotype which i don't necessarily disagree with that that certain judges are getting paid off i mean look we see enough egregious judging and boxing that that's got to be your first thought what if we just did five judges and you took away the the uh the outlier scores and just stuck with the three. I know it's not the first time somebody's said that, but the more I think about it, Luke, wouldn't that remove a large amount of these egregious results if you just got rid of those potential rogue scorecards in either direction

and stuck more with the middle majority? Isn't that the easiest fix? And if you say, well, you've got to pay more judges. Dude, have you seen what UFC judges get paid for the biggest fights, even compared to boxing? Remember you and I saw that tweet where it was like the judges in the McGregor fight, where the McGregor-Poirier trilogy were getting like $4,000, where the judges in the, I don't know if it was Wild or Fury, whatever big boxing fight recently, were getting like $15,000, $18,000.

It's really not that much money to pay two more judges, Luke, whether you have, you know, one do it in the back room, one on a TV screen. I don't care. One in the upper deck of the arena. Isn't that the way to fix it, dude? Getting rid of the people that are either incompetent, have a bad night, or are obviously either on the take or hoping that by scoring it for a certain fighter, they can continue to get jobs,

which I think is the bigger problem in boxing, even more than the idea of just here's some illegal cash. I think it's the idea that if I keep backing the money fighter, I'll keep getting called back. That fixes it, Luke. Tell me I'm wrong. That does fix it. I think that a lot of people have ideas about how to fix judging

that are kind of like, hey, can we put more duct tape on this jalopy rather than just getting rid of the used car and getting a new one? Here's what I would say. Two responses I would have to that, BC. First, personal preference, but I think the evidence bears out that when you judge a fight as a whole with competent judges, you get better results over time. That's a personal preference rather than going round by round. The thing I would say to justify that and really any change, whatever direction we would go to, this is my sort of standard answer that I give,

is what you're suggesting, does it sound plausible to me? Yes, it does. It sounds very plausible to me. But I think that what we need is the UFC, particularly in places where they self-regulate, we need somebody, or at least your regional promotions, to experiment. Give us what, show us what it looks like in actuality with data over the course of like a year or two or five when you have five judges and then you get rid of the best and the worst, well, not the best and the worst,

but the two outliers, and then you stick with the middle three. What happens when you do that? Does it actually get you better results? And the truth may be you get, like, dramatically better results, or it could be you just continue to get bullshit along the way. It doesn't really fix it. What I'm pointing out is before we make any change to any other system,

we need to have data about what it looks like when you implement it. And I think the only way to get there is for regional promotions to try or for UFC to experiment in places where they self-regulate. And we don't have enough of that. That's a nice idea and a nice plan, but Luke, fuck your data. Let's be honest about this. Castaño Charlo, fun as balls to watch. Showtime, yeah, go Showtime.

I hope we see it again, Luke. But be honest with me. That is the type of result with that one rogue scorecard that makes fans on the fence not want to come back am i wrong i don't know like if this is controversial to show time i'm not i'm not worried about it am i wrong doesn't that a scorecard like that when it becomes the narrative exiting a fight it makes people not want to watch the sport that are on the fence anymore right correct i think i think there's something to be said for that but you are making the fence anymore, right? Correct? I think there's something to be said for that, but you are making the supposition

that if you had five, you'd have fewer rogue scorecards, which you might actually get is just more. You don't actually know. You don't actually know. That's the problem. I just feel like if we had five, like, how many, I mean,

can you find two humans that would score that one? 117, 111 for Charlo? No, I don't think you could, so we wouldn't even be talking about that shit-stained scorecard. Why would it be any different? Probability. Numbers-wise. I just think we wouldn't

be talking about Nelson Vasquez or whatever the hell the guy's name was. We wouldn't be talking about Adelaide Bird, right? We would be talking about who won the fight and who deserved it. I'm just saying, outside of ripping up the whole system, which you were right, is probably the right way to do it. This is the Band-Aid that I think would work best. But that's just some guy named BC who's half crazy talking.

The one good thing about your idea, BC, is you could actually implement it without implementing it. And here's what I mean. You don't have to change any rules. So, for example, New Jersey State Athletic Control Board decided what would happen if we just kept scoring fights according to the rules, but then as like a project, just to see what numbers we come up with, let's have judges in the back who have like a soundproof booth,

who are watching multiple screens, and they can't hear the crowd, and they're actually not looking with their eyes at the cage. They're looking at an actual viewing monitor. What kind of results do you get there? So what I mean to say is they could just do what you're doing. The three judges that you pick to score, those are the scores you go with. But what would happen if as a pilot program, we asked two more judges to score each of those fights, and then let's pretend that we could throw out the results of the outliers.

Would that get us to a place that gives us better results? The great news about your suggestion is you couldn't implement it right away but you could develop the data that i'm talking about that either shows this works or it doesn't without having to change a thing in the short term i actually think it's something worth considering yeah let's do it let's do it let's do it let's fucking do it guy okay i don't need any data i don't need proof to believe things luke i think we've established that already. And that's why you believe a lot of silly-ass shit.

All right. So let's go to the last, but certainly not the least topic, BC. Conor McGregor, dude, I don't know what the fuck he is doing these days. He put out a couple of tweets. I think we have them on the screen here. Can we show them on the screen here, please? I'm not one of these guys who's typically like, hey, we need to tone police. I'm not calling for him to be cut or fined or what would that even

accomplish? It's really not about that. It's just about as a community, MMA is a place where there's a lot of people who are morally warped and demented. I'm not suggesting that McGregor is that way, but there are just a lot of people who have total moral relativism when it comes to any kind of thing about what's a good idea, what's a bad idea, what's a good thing to do, what's a bad thing to do. They will simply not exercise any judgment in that way. Now, this one is not that big of a deal to me at all. In fact, I don't think it's even remotely controversial. Jumping on a guillotine is not a takedown.

That's true. Absorbing the kick into the leg is not a check. True. A doctor stoppage is not a TKO. That's false. Absorbing the kick into the leg is not a check. True. A doctor stoppage is not a TKO. That's false. It is. The game goes on, bitches. Pissants to me use all R. Not even peasants. Pissants.

Now get to your stationed vlogger cameras, you novice bums. Nobodies. That's one tweet. Fine. He's just you know, he's lashing out. No big deal. I don't have any issue with that. But show us the one he sent in reference to habib now habib kind of trolled everyone including connor after dustin poirier beat him the third time and he said you know congratulations to dustin poirier could be did good always defeats evil connor put this tweet up

covid is good and father is evil now he deleted it about 20 minutes later bc i've seen some foul shit in the game yeah that's that's right up there with the top of it where you're taunting another man about the tragic death of his father wow dude and again again habib was you know stoking the flames himself a little bit and has had some world views that i don't agree with at all but this was low dude this was very like so look do i tolerate trash talking and the fight game more than a lot of people yeah like i i almost want it to be grimy we've already had these talks you know i want i want it to feel real like we'll do it at the end of the day you want it to feel real it's a real fight yes, yes, but sometimes it's a, instead of a fight, Luke, it's a match,

meaning there's two athletes that are going in there to win the match, but it's not a fight. What makes us the most excited when it's a fight, when it's like, I fucking hate that, bro? So yeah, there's times when I tolerate some absolute bullshit because I'm like, you know what? It fuels the fight. But don't forget the asterisk I always put out there, Luke.

There is a line. And like, you know, people often say about pornography, Luke, you know it when you see it. And I knew it when I saw this one. This went over the line. It's just, it's decrepit. It's morally bankrupt. If he's playing a character, it sucks.

If he's just trying to fire himself up, I mean, it's... I mean, there's a guy who's retired. I get that it's in response to Habib's original tweet. But, like, here's where I think, Luke, if I could play armchair psychologist... Dude, isn't he... I'm not interrupting. I just want to interject in just the middle and let go. It just feels to me like BC, true or false,

he's still in the Habib pre-fight presser mode he never left it well here's my not fear for him but my understanding of where he might be at this age so i praised connor for fighting uh rabidly right for fighting desperate right because i feel like at this age, with his skills slipping a bit and with him maybe not having fully evolved, fighting recklessly is kind of the best way to keep his brand strong and have the best chance at winning fights against more complete fighters.

So I liked his fighting spirit. There is obviously a problem with fighting desperate though, Luke, is that usually it's fueled by desperation. So I'm of course fearful for McGregor here that he's in a mode where it supports your points more, where he doesn't actually want to do this anymore, but feels like he has to, to keep the brand going, to keep making the paydays, to try to add to his legacy or repair it any way he can. and the only way he feels like he has any chance of getting himself back to

that level is through stoking these fires of of hatred and in dark trash talk and in reality Luke I mean he's doing this to a guy who's obviously retired so it just looks sad in a reach and that's really my biggest fear for him Luke because if you think about it you know we talk about what could make a good potential comeback opponent for him I gotta be honest a lot of these probably don't motivate him at all he'd be motivated for the title if he told me he could fight for it tomorrow but Conor McGregor doesn't want to climb a ladder we all know that so I think he kind of just needs to keep feeling like he's in a blood war with somebody because he knows in his heart, Luke, that guy may not be there anymore. And, you know, he came as close as he can to bringing that guy

back in the second and third Poirier fights to decent levels of success in round two in the second fight against Poirier. And, you know, decent levels of success in this round that Poirier won in the third fight and got 10-8 scores on two scorecards, but McGregor was in that fight, so to speak. But Luke, I feel like this really tells the tale of what you're saying, that the ghost is gone, and he knows it, but he doesn't want to admit it. And the only way he feels like he can get that guy back out is by continuing these, you know, fight to the death ideas in his head against the guys he feels like are his true rivals only at this point luke the sad part is i don't think anyone really looks at him like that anymore you know they look at him as the the money man who's on the other side

of the hill grasping at straws to try to find you know something and that's where the problem with cheering on a guy for fighting desperate, which I did is that underneath that desperate fighting style is desperation. And I think that's where he's at Luke. And it is sad to see, and it is over the line and it is petty and ridiculous. And, uh, I would like while he's rehabbing for him to go away for a while. He does it. His brand doesn't need, and we don't need, him on a scooter doing a live vlog, right? Going around a neighborhood.

Like, dude, do that shit in private, okay? You do have a brand to protect here, and that ain't it, and this ain't it either. So unplug for a while. Figure out who you really are. Figure out what's left, because all this shit is doing, you think it's making you the villain but it's the wrong lane it's the wrong angle it's it's making him look like a buffoon luke so uh it's not working bro we love the guy but it's not working so i

don't love this shit yeah i mean you know what's interesting is is that people always say oh well connor used to be funnier. But think about what that means. If something is funny in general, there are obviously exceptions to that, but in general, it's because it's a little bit lighter. Like when Jeremy Stevens is like, I'm the guy to fight Conor, and then Conor turns around and's like,

who the fuck is that guy? There's a certain lightness to it. It's mean, and it's insulting, but there's a certain lightness to it that goes along with it. It's just, with this shit, there's no lightness to it it's mean and it's insulting but there's a certain lightness to it that goes along with it it's just with this shit it's there's no lightness to it at all it's just heavy and dark and sinister and like you know you gotta ask yourself man you're mocking a guy for having his father die i mean something's a little off with you if that is like acceptable territory i mean who's cheering

that on look who is seeing that exactly like who's there are some deranged people on social media but that's always the case in general no one i really know certainly no one whose opinion i respect would ever look at that and be like yeah dude he got him you know you'd be like dude what the fuck are you doing like this is this is not even effective trash talk it's dark and it's at the bleeding edge of what is even possible at this point but it's not effective in any kind of way you think khabib is gonna like come back out of retirement for this i mean i might be pissed about it but he's not gonna it's not gonna get you any closer to your goals so you know for me it's like dude he just seems to be stuck in for me this is what i picked up on bc and those last i'll say about it he seems to be a little bit

stuck in the mode he was in for that Habib presser at Radio City Music Hall when there were no fans it was just him and Habib and this whole I just wonder it's like we ask these fighters and it's not fair to Conor McGregor or anybody else we ask these fighters to be something sometimes they're not and I don't know if that version he showed in the Cerrone and the second Poirier fight I don't know if those are real I don't know I don't know what those were maybe Maybe it's a part of them. Maybe it's not. Maybe it was all an act. But the only thing I can ask of Conor and of

anyone is, dude, just be who you are. But I would say if this is who you are, you should reflect on that because this is, first of all, it's dangerous in terms of the places it could go. It's not becoming of him. It doesn't get him any closer to his goals. And in the meantime, Jesus, man of what kind of trail of sorrow are you trying to sow here i don't

i don't understand what even the goal would be with something like this it's just it's just insanely insanely dark and mean for the purposes of being insanely dark and mean that means it's an audience of one that really gets off on it yeah Yeah, well, the only goal is to try to get Habib back into a fight, because I think Conor feels like that's the quickest way to try to repair everything he's lost of late, and the only way to get himself super fired up, again, is to try to get in some kind of blood war.

But the war's over, okay? Like, seriously. So, Luke, do you retroactively look at 2018 when Conor came back with the Dolly in Brooklyn and then, you know, had the ridiculous press conference and all the dark shit leading into the fight at 229? Do you think he knew in his heart that Habib was somebody who, you know, had a one up on him in the cage potentially? But in his in his heart, he was like, man, I got to break this guy. I got to put fear in him. The only way I can is to just go batshit crazy, and that's why he showed up with the dolly.

It's like when Habib cornered Artem Lobov, which is really like the spark that got Conor on the plane to arrive in Brooklyn. I wonder if Conor was like, oh, good, now I've got a reason, right? I can go crazy. It's like I can go Cassius Clay on Sonny Liston here and try to scare him into believing I'm crazier than anyone he's ever met. Bro, then you fought and you lost. And you lost one-sided. So, it's over.

I don't know. I don't think Conor's really afraid of anybody. He might be afraid of certain things like outcomes or looking a certain way or something like that. Like when he punched that old dude in the head and then went on that seemingly totally phony apology tour afterwards. He was afraid of losing his fan base, I think, or something like that. But I don't think he was afraid of Habib.

What I will say, though, is, and again, we're speculating here for what that's worth probably not much but i'll say i do think that he recognized habib had real advantages in ways that win mma fights and so he just wanted to show maximum aggression against that at all times as like a way of showing i'm not backing down from that you know so i don't think it was fear i think it was in fact the opposite but it was something it was compensating for think it was, in fact, the opposite, but it was something. It was compensating for something. It was compensating for some acknowledgement that Habib had something that he didn't. So let me show you max aggression as a way to sort of counteract that. But in the end, it doesn't really get you what you want either.

Right, to try to get you off your game and fight me emotionally and fight me on the feet, which, as we saw in round two, Luke, Habib did, and he dropped him. So it's, look, dude, either way, what I said stands. Like, go away for a while, bro. Go figure yourself out so then you can come back and figure out what's left of you, where your brand's at, who you want to fight if you do, you know, but this ain't it. So, Luke, can we have a new topic, five,

since I screwed the pooch earlier on Bellator? Please, go ahead. This unfortunate Tatiana Suarez news, the unbeaten former UFC strawweight who was supposed to be moving up to flyweight at UFC 266 to take on Roxanne Modafari. Luke, we were very much looking forward to this fight. This is the International Fight Week card in Vegas, correct? Correct, that's it.

And now Suarez is out of this fight, and what we're finding out, Luke, is it's a serious knee injury that needs surgery. And Luke, I'm getting Dominic Cruz vibes here. And I don't know if Suarez is ever historically, ability-wise, going to be or ever was going to be on the level of Cruz, but just the idea that every time she gets close to coming back, another setback happens. It's Cain Velasquez-like.

Either way, it's heartbreaking as shit for somebody who's unbeaten, tough as nails, and may have that type of style with her wrestling advantage to give anyone trouble across the 115 or 125 divisions. And now we gotta wait. Luke, it sucks to see, man.

It really does. And it went beyond a selfish suck to see because i want to see how good she actually is to man it can't be easy to go through for the person so i'm disappointed with this i'm really sad luke i think that's a fair point and she put out a big message on social media she's she's obviously devastated by this news and you could understand that it's just the worst the only takeaway takeaway I have, aside from the obvious, like we all feel bad for her, is one, she does plan to still get back to it,

so I admire her tenacity and perseverance, and I really hope she does, and we'll see how things go. The second thing I'd say, though, is, because you kind of pointed out something that really occurred to me, which is, yes, situations like hers are going to be rare. She had this rare cancer or neck injury and this, but I've seen enough of MMA to know, A, generally, the injury load is significant,

and B, we are going to have to wrap our heads around the fact that there are probably going to be multiple situations by the time our careers are over where we're going to have witnessed A-plus athletes or guys and girls who were just ready to take over the sport by storm or did and then couldn't finish it by virtue of injury. We don't talk about it, but Cain Velasquez is one of those types of guys who just had repeated, repeated injuries and multiple surgeries that kind of derailed him. And Dominic Cruz's feet issues, and now Tatiana Suarez is dealing with this, and she won't be the only one. Dude, injuries are going to derail a lot more athletes in MMA

than injuries will derail athletes in boxing, and that's unfortunate, but it's a fact. I hate to see this. This card is deep. It's going to be a good card as they return to Vegas. I don't know why they're pushing IFW out into September. What the hell is that? Yeah, usually it's July.

I don't know what the deal is with that one, we'll see by the way bc i want to remind folks that you and i are finalists for the sports category of the people's choice podcast awards of course we appreciate all you guys do for us we hope you enjoyed our show enough to nominate us to advance to the final round to do so nominate morning combat go to podcastawards.com slash app slash sign up, and then toggle down to the sports category. I mean, could voting be harder?

Could they, could they make it worse? We've included the link at the top of the episode description as well. So go, you can see the link up there. I think it's in the description box either way. Thank you for those who have voted. And if you haven't,

please consider doing so. All right, BC, let's do your dumb part of the show. Yeah. Hey, let's go to the dump. Hey, look, I stand by that. I love doing this segment. Look, if the people don's do your dumb part of the show. Yeah, hey, let's go to the dumb part. Hey, look, I stand by that I love doing this segment. Luke, if

the people don't like it, they can tell us. But I hope that you don't like it, because that's why it's designed. Every Wednesday, we pick out ten categories, five questions and five spins of the wheel. Good faith responses to decently faith questions. It's called The Wheel of Death.

Bomp-bada-bomp-bomp. Bomp-bomp. decently faith questions. It's called The Wheel of Death. All right, Luke, your 10 categories this week. You must answer them. I'm sorry, that's the way this sport works. Deja pay-per-view. Male journalists with chick names. John Nash's tax returns.

Muzak for your ballzack. Beast of a comic, RSD THC levels, Inside the MK, more of an Antonina guy, oh wow, yeah, coaches who date their fighters, and step one, open the box.

Luke, spin that shit, you get what you get. Mmm. Mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm. Hey, Deja Pay-Per-View. Hey, Luke, every era of MMA under the UFC banner has had its share of Pay-Per-View headliners who became

the face of the sport during their time on top but if you could go back into a time machine and grab one fighter throughout USC history whose fighting prime ended before the year 2010 and have them come of age as a top line draw in 2021 which fighter would you want to see compete at the highest pay-per-view levels in the sport today? And which three fights would you most like to immediately make with them? Now, when you say pre-2010, that means they have to have stopped fighting pre-2010? You know, I mean, you might have a couple couple fights after the turn of the decade there, but basically their prime was before 2010.

So, you know, like pre-UFC 100, right? Okay. I'll say Frank Shamrock is an obvious one. So you'd have him back today as what, a lightweight? Wait, what was he? I'm? Or what? Wait, what? Was he a welterweight?

I think he'd be like... I'm not sure what he fought Henzo at, but I think he'd be like middleweight, 185, something like that, because he fought 199. The reason why I question it is because they had different names for the weight classes

that they've actually changed. God, pre-2010. I'm trying to think. Like, UFC 100 and before. Some of those guys are still around, man. They really are. You know, Lesnar would kind of be an interesting choice. Chuck Liddell's out there.

Yes, he's out there as well. Although, that guy was hitting up bare knuckle. Do you see that? Yeah, he said if they pay him enough, he would be willing to fight in BKFC. Please, God, don't let that happen. For the love of Jesus. I would go with... You know what i would go with so that maybe not the best choice but the one i think would be like the funnest because i think he could actually hold his own and adapt i'll go rich franklin i think prime rich franklin i mean he got overshadowed by anderson but like

i don't think folks understand how good prime Anderson was. I mean, some folks do obviously, but, uh, if you lived through it, you know, he was just a fucking demolition man. But dude, before that, Rich Franklin was fucking people. Rich Franklin changed David Loazo permanently, you know, and he beat the shit out of Evan Tanner. Like he did, he was a very good fighter. I remember, though, he busted up Edwin Deweese, too. Dude, Rich Franklin was good. He was really good. I would go him. The three fights I would pick, Rockhold, I'd go...

Do they have to be UFC fighters? That was the spirit of the question but if you've got an alternate answer I'll accept it Luke I mean if you could take Prime Fedor and drop him into the UFC heavyweight division today that'd be fun that's a good choice, that's a better choice than mine but I'm going to stick with what I got

I'm going to say Rich Franklin vs. Rockhold I'll do Franklin vs. just to see how it goes, he would win. But I'd be curious against Adesanya. Adesanya would win, obviously. And then I'll go against, how about, that's a tough one. Weidman. Weidman. Weidman.

I'd be curious to see that one as well. These don't sound like pay-per-view blockbusters, Luke. What about a prime BJ Penn? Like a prime lightweight BJ Penn. That's a better choice than mine, too. Yeah. If you parachute him into today's game with his badass style and hope that he could adjust to today's pace and style.

And I do realize that he was just recently active and probably still fighting in parking lots luke unfortunately but uh i mean that'd be fun as shit to see him against today's guys yes him versus uh man well that's a tough that's a tough thing to do but like tony um tony yeah con would be kind of interesting as well. Because folks forget, prime BJ had very good striking and a hard punch. He was a devastating puncher at the time. How about that takedown defense too, Luke? Unstoppable takedown defense in his prime.

Also, you could go Matt Hughes. I still think Matt Hughes, his game's a little basic, but he could make it work, I think, in certain ways um but yeah the your choices were all better than mine i had very shitty answers all right luke let's see if this trend continues spin number two coming your way Muzak for your Balzac. Wow, these are really great questions. Hey, Luke, it's interesting to consider how much the music choices of our parents in our formative years end up playing a role in the type of music we listen to now as adults.

For example, my dad was the kind of dad who had music playing in the background of everything we did, from driving in the car to to eating dinner, to having friends over. And although my pops and I have much different taste in music today, for the most part, he prefers traditional blues and pop rock to my more jazz fusion jam band and progressive rock tastes. The tapes and records which he played in my early years without question luke they built the foundation of what i listened to today everything from van halen and guns and roses to cat stevens hank williams jr willie nelson on and on they those things filled my eardrums at a very young age and that brings me to you luke because i'm curious because you aggressively

have one of the most questionable music palettes that I've seen for somebody outside of Angry Teenagers. You got balls talking about that when I've heard the shit in your movie. Wearing trench coats, Luke. You have the musical palette of a future school shooter. So that I can better understand who you are and how you got here name for me the five albums that were most played during your youth by either of your parents that may have you know prepared you for the music you like today okay well you can write off my dad because he doesn't listen to music that way he'll listen to opera or you know classical composers but nothing even within the last couple of centuries, basically.

So he's out. If you're talking about studio albums, even though it's a little hard, but I would say for my mom, Alison Krauss, Every Time You Say Goodbye would be one. That's some good shit, yeah. I don't know which albums, but my mom was a huge Ricky Skaggs fan,

like Bluegrass, you know? Okay, okay, I'm into this, Luke. I can respect this. We'll go, you know, something around like the early 80s, early 90s would be big for him. I would say on top of that, who else did she really like besides that?

She liked, those are two big ones. She liked Dolly Parton from the 80s. She liked, oh, God, hold on. Let me look it up real quick. I'll tell you exactly who it was. My mom was big in the country. Hold on.

Okay, here we go. She liked Dave Mason. and hold on and we okay here we go uh she liked uh dave mason i'm i've i'm a big dave mason fan i bought all of his vinyl luke he's former formerly of traffic and he had a he had an adult contemporary solo career i love that guy yeah so so those are three or four at this point what's another one she really liked? Oh, she liked George Strait. She was a big George Strait fan. Okay. Luke, this is not awful in terms of informing your musical senses.

I thought you would be like, oh, she liked bread and all these other pop bubble gum bullshit. No, she likes some decent shit. So what happened to you, Luke? That's the question. I evolved and elevated. Alright. Well, Luke, we're 0 for 2 so far on

have you spun this wheel? So let's keep it going. Woo! Alright. Just don't ruin the show. What do we got here? Alright. Inside the MK. Hey, Luke, from day one, you've said something about this show that has always stuck with me.

You said you and I can take a day off here or there or go on vacation and we can welcome in any number of replacements that we love dearly as people from Minden Hall to Rashad Evans, but that's not MK. It's a great show, but it's not BC and LT. BC and LT are MK and will always be.

And Luke, I respect that and largely believe it to be true. But as we have already identified from a tip-to-tip segment earlier this year on a previous episode, I'm a monster fan of that four-part Inside the NBA doc that TNT did for the show's 30th anniversary. A big part of that doc showed the risk that they took in taking that classic three-man lineup of Ernie, Jet, and Charles Barkley and dropping in such a dominant fourth personality in Shaquille O'Neal. Luke, the chemistry was anything but instant off the start yet over

time obviously Shaq has added a very incredible dynamic to what makes their show great so let's say Luke the big suits at CBS and Showtime came to us and said guys we love the shit out of MK in fact we wanted to grow even bigger than you possibly do we want to make it a daily show, put it on TV, put it in a studio. We want to fulfill all your dreams. We want to be on after the fights. We want to be there, okay? But we feel like to make this financial investment, we need a third person on set, particularly an ex-fighter, to really justify what we're doing here. And Luke, let's say for the sake of argument, and we both love working for him, but let's say, working with him,

let's say Sugar Rashad wasn't available and he couldn't make the move to do this every day and all that shit. But Luke, what if IcomCBS said, Luke, this is the way we're going. We're investing money in you. We got to add a third. But here's the hook.

We will let you, Luke Thomas, because of your producer credit, choose the fighter to add to MK and make it a three-man dance. So, Luke, be sure to keep in mind chemistry, the size of the fighter's platform from the standpoint of marketing the show, and how potentially funny this third person could be and how they would mix with us. Which fighter, current, active, retired, whatever,

would you pick to round out the new Morning Combat trio? That's a great question because Shaq is so unique. And that was a tough thing to do. I feel like they cast that perfectly. Shaq's a big goofball, you know what I mean? He pokes fun at himself, which is key. He's a commercial whore, but he's a big goofball you know what I mean um he's a commercial himself which is key you know he's a commercial whore but uh he's a goofball but but obviously he's one of the most decorated a big men that ever played the game and really one of those decorated players that

ever played the game you know um man that is a tough wow that's a tough call here's the problem it's like and you know this too bc when you cover a fighter in the middle of their career a lot of times you're seeing them on fight week when they're cutting weight they're very serious you know they they keep a professional distance between you and themselves and everything else i would need someone who i think could be funny who could laugh at themselves who likes to have a good time, but could also provide trenchant analysis about the fights and really bring a perspective

and would be willing to argue. That's the other part too. Here's one thing that you know as well as I do. A lot of times what they'll do is they'll pair a journalist and then they'll pair an athlete and the athlete always kind of polices the journalist's opinions,

whether the opinion is good or bad because you didn't do it and it's like well that there's a there's a value are you talking about josh thompson right now luke by any chance oh no no this has happened to me a million times dude and josh has actually gives me a lot of leeway i don't i in fact i feel quite the opposite but um it just happens all the time with all different kinds of pairs you might laugh at this because it's so recent, but I'm trying to think of somebody who's like, who can capture the goofy and the serious?

Who we would get along with. I'll go Israel Adesanya. I think we could do a great show with him. I think we could do a great show with him. That is interesting because he might be weird. No, all due respect, he might be weirder than we are. Seriously. Yes because he's he might be weird no all due respect he might be weirder than we are seriously yes he's a little bit weirder than we are but he obviously knows the game hello and b i think he enjoys a good laugh plus he's younger than us

so he's gonna have a slightly different vibe than two old fucks like us because i think if you just bring in a third 40 year old white guy i'm not sure what that gets you. I also think BC, you know what would be another good choice? Angela Hill would be a good choice. She likes to have a good time. She knows the fight game. She's sneaky too, Luke. She's a little bit sneaky. She's a little bit sneaky.

That's true. I think it has to be somebody a little bit different than us. You try to add a female. I cut you off there really badly. Luke, if you add a female to what we do here, you're asking for HR issues, all right? Probably, but unless they have a good attitude about things, and I think she would have a good attitude, you know?

Those are some interesting picks, Luke. That would, because, you know, that was a gamble, bringing in Shaq, but it worked. Who knows, Luke, if one day you and I, you know. I mean, our chat, according to our producer Mikey, is saying Darren Till is the choice, Luke. I think we'd have a hard time understanding what he's saying. His accent, that Scouse accent is thick. All right.

Hey, two more spins and then we can stop doing this. Let's keep it going. Come on, Latina big booties. It never ends up on that. I have a feeling more of an Antonina guy. Are you fucking serious? Luke, let's face it. It can't be easy for UFC women's strawweight Antonina Shevchenko

to essentially live in the shadow fighting in the same division of her younger sister. Can you hear my daughter singing Moana out there? No. No, I can't. Because she is. If she wants to join the show, I'm welcome. If she wants to be our third, I'm down with it. Luke, obviously Antonina is a good fighter,

but Luke kind of lives in the shadow in the same division of her younger sister, Valentina. But despite both being sneaky hot, Luke, the Shevchenkos are far from the first sibling combo to have success at a high level in elite MMA. But if we're being honest, very few sibling combos end up like the Diaz brothers, where Nick and Nate at different times have sort of alternated historically in terms of who's the better fighter overall or who has the better resume. You can certainly argue that nate has you know surpassed nick in some ways uh in all that normally luke and mma history were more used to things like you got shogun who up here and ninja who uh way down here or the great rashad evans here and oh remember that time his lance his brother lance was on tough right no you don't

like we that's normally where we're at so sometimes the gap between siblings is way far off so with the exception of the Diaz's Luke who are essentially standard bearers in this topic in it with the exception of the Shamrocks who aren't natural brothers and we're both adopted I want to ask you to create a top five pound for pound list encompassing the history of MMA counting down the best fighters of all time who weren't the best fighters in their own family. So these are B-side siblings who are the five greatest, with the exception of the Diazes and the Shamrocks,

in MMA history. Okay. So I'll just say some names. I don't know if they're going to be the best ones, but you have Antonina Shevchenko, obviously, in the name of the question. That's one. She's not making the top five, Luke. She's not making names. I don't know if they're going to be the best ones, but you have Antonina Shevchenko, obviously, in the name of the question. That's one. She's not making the top five, Luke.

She's not making it. I'm sorry. What about Little Nog? He goes on that list, right? Little Nog, hell yeah. He's in this list. Yep. I don't think he fought very much,

but you could at least on the list somewhere would be Mark Hughes, the twin of Matt, or the brother anyway. I think they're twins. Hey, how about Sergio Pettis, bro? All right. Yeah, Sergio Pettis would be on that list for sure. Although, you know, he's coming to his own. I mean, he's still young, dude.

He might surpass Anthony. It's possible. We'll have to see how things go. But for sure, Lil Nog and then Pettis would be the two big ones. You mentioned, yeah, the Lance. I'm trying to think. Who are some other brother-sister tandems that both fought that were pretty good? You know what?

I'm not sure who was better, but you could add, I think, Karina Dam. You could add to the list. Her brother, Rodrigo, was probably better than her. So you could add her to the list. I don't think they're making the top five. Luke, I think you're forgetting about too many people. Well, you said I couldn't count the Shamrocks, right? I couldn't count either of them.

Who else was off-limits? The Diazes, because that was the example of, yeah. So, all right, who am I forgetting? Patrycki Pitbull, Luke, he don't suck. Yeah, he's good. He's good. Yep. Who else?

The other Ellenberger? No. Yeah, there were two Ellenbergers, Joe and Jake. Jake was the better of the two, so Joe would be on that list. Yeah, there's been a few. There's been a few. Well, Luke, maybe this will be the last time we spin the wheel because we're 0 for 4. You've got one left.

Well, the problem is you're asking me, like, name five obscure things. It's like, okay, alright. Okay, well, you know, we'll see how much life this shit has left. We've got one more, Luke. Let's end it on a good note. I can only write the questions.

I can't make the magic, okay? All right, Luke. Open the box. Luke, you said something that I felt in the moment were the sweetest words I'd have ever heard you say during an episode of last week's MK. When we were discussing the issues which regularly plague my favorite sport, the great but broken sport of boxing,

from coming anywhere close to reaching its full potential, you said that when boxing is at its best, it's the best combat sport there is. And that's something I've always said from day one. It's even something our guy John Anik has said a few different times. He, he although was a boxing lover at first which a lot of us were before coming around um the problem of course luke is that you need to savor the flavor because those best moments only tend to show up on the biggest platforms a few times a year obviously a comment

like that will draw some outrage from the MMA community who rightfully love the consistency of that great sport, given the control UFC has. And top level MMA is obviously freaking amazing. Let's never get that wrong. But Luke, you and I wouldn't be sitting here doing our job if it wasn't. I wanted to give you a chance to explain your statement a bit more what is it about top end boxing when the stars align and the big fights get made and it actually delivers that makes it so special that it could be even better in given moments than the best of what mma has and furthermore luke imagine a scenario in which boxing's problems went away and we had a central governing body corruption was gone we had one major league in

which all the promoters were part of in this utopian world what place would boxing hold in the greater sports world if not pop culture in general overall if all that magic could be placed on it and all that bad shit can be gone the latter part is hard because I just don't think you get boxing without the bad stuff. I mean, it is the bad stuff. It's the good stuff too, but it's like, I don't know. What if you could just take away all the calories from eating cake? But it wouldn't be cake at that point. So I'll skip that one.

But to answer the question, I thought about this a little bit. Why, when we watch really big main events that really deliver, and in MMA and boxing, that can be rare all year long or for several years, but just think back in your mind, whatever fight that is for you, and listen, if you don't like boxing, there's nothing I'm going to say that's going to convince you, but let's say you're at least open to the idea. Think back to the biggest boxing main event that you can remember that just really delivered

what was it about it that delivered assuming it went the distance in any kind of or at least you know past the eighth round or something for me it's that a the fights are longer it's 36 minutes as opposed to 30 if you count the time in between the break well actually it's more than 36 if you count all the breaks so it's a longer fight, but the intervals are shorter, which creates the sort of feel of like chapters in a book. And what you get is a, again, when it all works. And many times it doesn't. But when it works, what you get is this story of a fight

that begins to get told through the competition itself. And then the plot goes through twists. And it goes up, and it goes through twists and it goes up and it goes down and it goes sideways and you didn't see it coming and it usually ends with some kind of culminating moment after all of this turmoil and complexity and fun and uncertainty it just gives because of the length and because of the way the chapters work and how the two competitors might meet, it gives it so much more emotional depth sometimes than what you can often get in MMA, which three, five-minute rounds, you can get a lot of there, but it's just coming and going so fast. It's hard to pay attention to. Folks can forget what happens in a round unless

you go back and you watch it again. Boxing that that way too but it's a little bit more memorable in that way for me it's the um it's just the it's just a narrative that can develop over the course of round five round six round seven come back round eight guy gets dropped in around nine guy drops the other guy in around 10 there's so much more of a story in the book to write when you have all of those ingredients line up and i admit bc it's rare when that happens but when it does i just really struggle to think of what its peer could be you know i i i've always agreed with this but i the reason why i wrote this question is because i wasn't really sure why i agreed with this and like am i romanticizing the classic element of boxing that it's this you this historic sport in comparison to MMA?

Maybe, but I think you kind of nailed it with the extra chapters creates more of a story and drama. And I just think, Luke, knockdowns have a way in big fights of being a stop moment. Whereas you have knockdowns in MMA, obviously, but the fight still goes on and it's part of a larger five minute block. And maybe it's the fact that, you know, a knockdown can be so dramatic because a fight can look like it's going one way and then somebody drops and the fight actually stops for 10 seconds. And there's the drama and thrill of will they get up and how much does that one point swing the, you the scoring in the fight maybe that's it luke maybe that's the foundation for what it is is it just that boxing is a more simpler sport to

truly get because it's two guys with two fists and that's it i mean i don't i don't know luke i'm trying to even struggle to really put it to words. But I do agree with that. The rare times when boxing is at the very highest, absolute top level and it delivers, think like Triple G, Canelo 2, stuff like that. You're like, holy shit, this is the best sport there is. Luke, I do wonder that latter part. I have some breaking news. It's good and it's bad. Do you want to hear it?

Bring it, Luke, bring it. Good news. We, as in MK, have been nominated for Best MMA Programming by the World MMA Awards. We made the final list. Is that the same one we are telling people to vote for? No, no. This is the one that is like the MMA Insiders kind of awards. So it's us, the Contender Series dc and hawani uh the joe

rogan show and ufc embedded so the good news is we got nominated the bad news is joe rogan's on the list there's no fucking chance we'll win so it's been a good run i appreciate the nomination so thank you for the nomination pretty cool to see but um we ain't gonna win that shit sorry all right all right yeah well we'll just wrap up this segment anyway luke okay i thought i had you but i lost you that's okay you know sometimes you win and then sometimes you just put an episode out on a wednesday that sucks you know and if that happened this week um i'll be better i'll be better do we have fan subs this week yeah we do luke we do i don't know if you care enough to react to them.

Are you ready, Luke? Listen, first of all, let me just say something. These are the awards that, I think they've been around for like 13 or so years. These are the ones that I feel like stuff that I'm involved with, and then now you and us, I don't feel like we're the award-winning type of show, even though I feel like we do a lot of great things. And again, we're not going to win.

I mean, you've got Joe Rogan and UFC official programming on there. It's kind of hopeless for us. But, you know, to acknowledge that, at least among insiders, that we deserve a place among the five, it's pretty cool, man. It's good to see. Show me a fan with a JRE tat on their left bystep oh i bet there are some i bet there's many all right show me a jre fan who uh makes his own land jaeger and delivers it by hand to the host luke yes that's a little different out of a gym bag

that's weird and awful but i did eat the land Jaeger and it was, it was okay. It was okay. It was good. Actually. I heard it. It prevents COVID to look. Okay. Hey,

let's take this flat tire of a show to the, to the garage here. Let's close with a morning combat at gmail.com is your email address to send in pictures of you. Usually wearing our shit. It's called Fan Submissions. Oh, fuck. I got more breaking news real quickly. You ready for this one? It's just all bad. Let me guess. You got a shit, Luke. Is that the breaking news? No, no, no, no, no. Chris Weidman

tells SiriusXM that his leg has not healed correctly and he is now scheduled for another surgery. Damn, dude. That is tough to deal with luke damn fuck i hope he's okay that's bad this game is this game is brutal luke it really is it really is man it's it's it's hard it's hard yep yep i mean you know we thought cauliflower ear was gross, right? Cauliflower ear is the least of these people's concern. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah.

All right. Hey, Paul G's got a fan sub. He says, hello, Luke, Brian, and company. I've been a fan since Luke was calling Danny Segura his arepa, and Brian had a functioning liver. Wow. That was a long time ago. He says, also watches the show. My next goal is to make my kickboxing smoker debut through your favorite MMA gym in Dallas

and then become a long and strong 6'3 welterweight or middleweight while continuing to rep MK merch when possible. Best regards and much love from Tejas. It's Paul G. Manish, can you blow this up? Let's get a good look at this guy. Luke, a 6'3 welterweight, potentially. Bro, that Kimura in the second photo,

he stepped over the head. He's got that fucking guy dead to rights, man. He's got his lovely woman posting tips for us, Luke. Yeah, although, go back to the photos. Yeah, player, you gotta use your thumb on the top of your hand, not to grab the wrist. Oh, here we go.

You can't just sell it to the guy. Hey, thanks for this. Dude, it's true. I'm sorry. Anybody who can see it will tell you. Look at me. The Kimura is gripped like this, not like this. Sorry, Mr. Hibas.

I'm sure your daughter loves you, but, you know, your skin is screwed for life there. All right. Okay. Thank you, Paul, for your contribution to this world and that gym. sure your daughter loves you but you know your skin is uh screwed for life there all right okay thank you paul for your uh contribution to this world and that gym and yes but also congratulations on the blue belt and congratulations on the double gold wish you nothing but the best in your martial arts journey do you have any advice for him on going pro as an mma fighter luke to maybe not do it same advice i give to everyone if you want to do it keep showing up as long as it

motivates you and then once it doesn't, call it a day. Easy. I hope that same spirit carries over to you for this show, Luke, one day. If you're not feeling it anymore, just walk away. I'm feeling it. I'm not feeling some of the segments you force on me, but otherwise I'm feeling it. All right, Luke.

There's a fellow named Rajiv. He has four photos to show us. He says, what's up, Donks? My name is Rajiv. Sorry, Rajiv. I live in Vegas. I'm a Day One fan. Bummed I missed the live show because of work.

I felt compelled to submit some pics. Rockin' merch 1.0 to add some pigment to your fan subs and let you know. With the MF Doom. Luke, get this. He wants us to know that only 99% of MK fans have stormed the Capitol. He said, I did get a pick at 264 with the championship belt repping the number one combat sports pod. Next time you're in Vegas, you should check out the Arts District.

Oh, that sounds artsy. It's a little off the north end of the strip. It's something for the BBC and the LT. Great food, art, booze, and most importantly, we got BBLs. Wishing you guys continued success and happy belated B-Day, BC. P.S., if you're in Vegas and decided to take a break from detoxing your liver, drinks are on me. Luke, Rajiv, I think, is our type of guy here, all right?

I got to say, I felt like we did a pretty good job when we went to Vegas earlier this month of not drinking that much. Right. We drink a little bit, but not much. Yeah. Yeah. The other, the other things, Luke. Yeah.

We did a lot of the other stuff, but we didn't do much drinking. All right. Luke, I would take Rajiv up on his offer to check out oh yeah he seems great dude i mean and then i want to see that what that mf doom is that looked pretty cool all right let's keep it going daniel says i got an oldie but goodie is this chick's phone case the one that bc has it is a kate spade oh come on yes come on no bro i got the man the man version look that white one is the female one this is like the artsy man one luke all i know is i asked eric albaracin if this was if this was a

male product if this was artsy and do you know i also asked floyd mayweather when we sat down oh let me hold up when we sat down with the versace robes luke floyd was into this pattern all right i don't remember what floyd said but asking eric who is amazing but also dresses like liberace is not exactly asking a neutral audience mma's answer to liberace that's brilliant wow all right thank you daniel but no that's the female one you have right there. Matt slides in and says, BC has inspired me to create some art. I hope the guys like this drawing. Also, this fan submission comes with a trivia question.

Who was the first Canadian UFC champion? Luke? Carlos Newton? Correct! He said Newton slapped a bulldog choke on Pat Miletic at UFC 31. As a Canadian myself, this is still the only fight to ever provide me with a sexual release. Thanks, guys.

All the best. Matt. Sexual release, Luke. I didn't need to know that. What do you think of this drawing? It's actually pretty good. Drawing's pretty good. Drawing, especially your beard, but they should have put more white in it.

And then they should have made your hair, your hair jet black and Wayne Newton-y. All right. Let's go over to Tom R. He says, these MK tats are getting out of hand. God, dude. That is Damien from Stockton's chest luke bro damien like does he have a significant other or something like how does he explain that to them i believe i asked him luke on that video which you can check out on youtube um if the the satanic death tattoos have hurt his

game or helped it and luke he says help yeah but helped among who like here's the thing i've been to death metal shows any number of times women do show up there but they're you know they're zeros i mean you wouldn't you wouldn't uh go home with them on a dare uh unless you know whatever but uh so is he getting more of that because i mean imagine meeting like a normal person like oh what do you do for a living oh i'm an accountant hey here's a child being hung uh on my chest and a tattoo like it just doesn't work but if another person also has a satanic tattoo well then they're into it but who has a satanic tattoo that's a woman that you would find I will say I know you won't watch that interview with him Luke because you don't really care about our fans or our staff much oh but i will say that um

he is a sweetheart he does come across like that luke despite those tattoos okay so shout out to damien who's currently protecting me in the great battle of uh fighter pay with john nash so uh great to see all right luke uh hickson hickson is here he says uh hey there bc and luke keep up the great work i've been a fan since the m MMA beat days when you two were part of the Canadians guest panel. Bit of trivia, Luke. I've never worked with the Canadian. Yeah, you were only on once I was hosting.

That's right. Yes, yes. Because I probably would have stolen the show, Luke, to be honest with you. Wow, Luke, fast and bi-curious. You know what? That's pretty fucking funny is what it is that is uh that's offensive in a few different ways luke but uh thank you uh hickson he's got one more meme for us luke you're damn right okay you're dead hey luke didn't you visit some uh graffiti walls in dc recently

i didn't mean to i took my daughter to a park um and there was this giant wall along this trail and they update the paintings every so often i guess i hadn't been in a while and all of them were new and i was like wow and they were pretty good actually all right hey luke we got one more for you. It's from our good friend Moo Hamer. He says, hello, after listening to today's episode and BC's outrageous claim that TJ can be awarded round five based on BC's feelings, I guess I had two choices,

punching a hole through my mother or trying to transform my anger into something else, something therapeutic. Some may even say some are best muhamer let's see what he did here luke what do we got here so did you see uh infinity war and endgame no i did not uh okay so i can't remember if it was infinity war or endgame which one of the two he got it in but he got the reality stone and so when he closed his fist, he could use one of the stones, the infinity stones,

to just remake reality in his image. And the quote is what Thanos says, reality can be whatever I want it to be, yeah. Well, I mean, am I making up my own judging rules or are the three judges assigned judging on their own standards? I think we both are in different ways. But if we say we

understand why fights are scored the way they're scored but we disagree with why fights are scored that way we're kind of being a little bit Thanos-y with it yeah there is something to be said for that okay all right thank you Muhammer for sliding in thank you to all our fun folks for joining us here morningcombat at gmail.com for your dead wrongs on Friday, for your fan subs on Wednesday. A lot of people always ask as well, how do I get in that DM for donks business? Every Sunday night on our Instagram

page, Morning Combat, you can respond to our post asking for DM questions. So there's your social information below. Two-hour show today, Luke. I wouldn't say it was our best. I wouldn't. I wouldn't say it's our worst.

I wouldn't say it's anything close to what we can do on a regular basis, Luke. In fact, we may have just fucked around today. We may have lost subs, Luke. No, I think we fucked around and hit a triple-double. You know what I'm saying? It's been a good day. Alright. uh he gave you the email but there's other places that

we want you to go to which includes all of our social channels the name morning combat is consistent everywhere twitter instagram youtube you name it bc and i have slightly different names between instagram and twitter but please give us a follow if you'd be so inclined um reminder bellator 263 10, 10pm in the east, starts on Showtime on Saturday. The prelims will start on YouTube before that. But if you want to try Showtime, you certainly may, for free.

Go to Showtime.com, get a 30-day free trial. If you like it, keep it. If not, be a dumbass. I mean, it's not illegal and wrong to be a dumbass. You just won't have as good of a life. If you want to get some merch, you can go to MorningCombatbat.store there's plenty of there to peruse and uh yes uh we'll take your dead wrongs at morning combat at gmail on friday bc anything else oh all of our interviews and whatnot anything else coming up between now and then i think i'm talking to uriah hall today luke i think

okay and then we also have uh the weigh-ins we're going to be reacting to we're going to have the press server which we're going to be reacting to tomorrow and friday so lots of mk content coming your way there will be a chat it just won't be live i'll take your questions record a video and then just upload it but it will be on its way okay yo you think that that that mother effort jay aaron who says Aaron, who claims he landed a kick that knocked Uriah Hall over during practice, we'll get to the bottom of that once and for all, right? Now's your chance.

You can ask Uriah. Uriah's not going to know who that is, I guarantee. Maybe I'll address him as Pennington. Maybe Uriah will understand that a little bit better. Check out our resume review as well on YouTube. Our folks put a lot of work into it, and you know what? It's really freaking good.

Hey, Luke, final question to you. If AJ McKee wins on Saturday, which is very much within the spectrum of reality, will you come clean and say, yes, the MK curse is very real? No, because it wouldn't prove anything. What is the mechanism of the curse who has the power and why did they bestow it upon us how long does it last what are the what are the things that make this part of how life operates no it would mean fucking absolutely nothing other than what people want to imagine it would be no all right

there you go uh just to update william Hill currently has AJ McKee plus 105, Pitbull minus 125. So this is a veritable pick-em fight, Luke. We'll see. We'll let the curse decide who wins, okay? You know, that's all I'm saying.

No doubt about it. Okay. Well, we appreciate everyone turning in to watch. Like the video. Hit subscribe. We'll be back tomorrow and Friday and Saturday night.

We've got plenty of coverage coming your way. So for Malka, CBS, Showtime, The King of Connecticut, I'm your boy Luke Thomas. Until next time, may all of your gains be loyal. The epic finale of the Featherweight World Grand Prix is here. I'm a man and you're me. The main event, the Grand Prix Final. Legendary 145-pound champ, Patricio Pitbull.

Your dominance. Collides with the undefeated, A.J. Mercenary McKeague. The longest win streak in Bellator history. For $1 million and the world title. Bellator MMA, live Saturday, July 31st on Showtime, where warriors rule. So what happens now? Hello, old friend. Get in! you Thank you. We'll be right back. We'll see you next time.