MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Vacation Mailbag: Boxing vs. MMA | Aliens | Favorite Year in MMA

Episode Date: August 11, 2023

Luke Thomas and Brian Campbell are on vacation but don't worry they have you covered with a mailbag. The boys answer a bunch of questions submitted by the fans. (5:00) - Boxing vs. MMA in 2023 (7:30) - Favorite Year in MMA (13:00) - Aliens (20:40) - MMA Judging (22:20) - Terence Crawford (32:20) - Boxing Weight Cuts (35:30) - Best Friend Date to Arbys (45:45) - Favorite Active Boxers (54:00) - Favorite Female MMA Fighters (57:00) - ESPN's Future (62:30) - Favorite Discontinued Food Morning Kombat is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher and wherever else you listen to podcasts.     For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

yeah oh yeah we're doing this thing right i like luke thomas i think i think it's friday august 11th 2023 but in the space-time continuum we're recording this before or maybe after it actually airs one of those things but i'm brian campbell you're luke thomas and people always wonder why do these losers always win all these awards because luke we're willing to fill your holes on our days off too are we not and from what i can only guess is a at most a three-star motel i mean there's no way that they recommend this place on trip advisor right i i can't speak too much too well of that i should probably can i zoom in a little bit more here live oh look at this we're not live there we go okay look i'm here this is the award-winning morning combat i mean it's such

a good show it's ridiculous right it's so good that we will even do it from hotel room motel rooms excuse me where are you right now i'm in bethlehem pennsylvania okay the site they call it methlehem cory manichi of malca fame luke is from this town is from this town right here look at me hi i'm vc so i'm like the like the loose happy-go-lucky host of the two of this is your first time and my pedantic self-loathing partner is right there, Luke Thomas. And this is like, hey, I'm on vacation and you're on vacation, but we still love our fans. So why don't we answer their questions, Luke? Why don't we fondle their mailbag, if you will?

Will you? Hey, Mikey made us do this show. We might as well deliver it all right this show is an advertisement for uh our eventual firing i mean we are just i mean do you know what my second favorite moment of european vacation was because my first was when rusty got that german girl at the at the oktoberfest scene in the back and she like you don't remember that part that was pretty decent right but number two was you remember when they were knocking on the door looking for their that German girl at the, at the Oktoberfest scene in the back. And she like, you don't remember that part. That was pretty decent. Right. But number two was,

you remember when they were knocking on the door, looking for their relatives and Chevy Chase was like, my family and I are looking for sex, but really he met six, you know, I don't, I don't know. I guess you had to be there.

Which one, which movie was it where he gets lost in New York. And then he asked the guy for directions and he's like, man, fuck your mama. I was saying, let's give me directions to the freeway that was the first vacation movie thank you very much that one is that one is stupendous well they're all great except for Vegas vacation the fourth one that we're going to pretend never happened um so what we did here was we solicited our male

listeners by offering a mail bag uh because we've got Ben and Jaius when it comes to our listeners, right? It's raining men. Hallelujah. So these questions, folks, are from you, the viewer. Thank you for tipping the wagers, Mikey Mormo of CBS Sports on the ones and twos, and you can probably borrow merch somewhere, but that's our follow channels below and morning combat dot store is a great place to wear a bomber jacket in the summertime thank you hopefully average joe by by this point hopefully oh wait that's probably sorry spoiler free shows from this point forward all right luke you want me to get into it or do you have any preamble i mean look we're allowed vacations they can hate on us but we are allowed vacations i I would say that I haven't seen it as I'm recording this, but by the time the audience sees it,

I'll have watched the movie Oppenheimer. Oh, wow. Yeah, I'm going to see Oppenheimer. Okay, but because you are not only a loving husband, but a hashtag girl dad like the late Kobe Bean Bryant, would this be a Barbenheimer double bill for your family? Will you see both the Barbie movie and Oppenheimer? My wife already saw Barbie,

and she said it's really not appropriate for Violetta. So they can't take her. And A, they've already seen it. So no, they're just going to let me go, and they're going to chill. So they're just going to let me go, and they're going to chill. They don't want to go see Oppenheimer. That's not a Tukes-approved movie, but I

can't wait to hear your review. Are you going to see it on vacation? Wait, when are we filming this again? No, I'm still working at this point. This feels a little bit like Back to the Future, and I'm not really sure what year. Are we in dystopian 1985?

I'm not sure right now, but yeah, all right. Hey, our first question, Luke, came in under the auspices of Combat Sports from VictorSanchez-Castro8944. Do you think that's the year and date that VictorSanchez-Castro was born? August 9th, 1944. He would have way older balls than us.

Those are some saggy balls. Let's see what you got. Balls, they were weird. Luke, who is having the better year in terms of putting on entertaining and meaningful fights? Get this. MMA or The Box 2023.

Who is having the better year? How is this even in debate i mean is it though is it is there a debate and i say that respectfully because yeah yeah he's having the best year in 20 years but or maybe i don't know i could i could pinpoint 2013 and 2007 as great years as well but mma would you say it's been a bad year or just a bad PR year? It's been a bad – I don't even know if it's been that bad of a PR year. I mean, I guess, well, yeah, listen, the year got started off weird with the whole incident with Dan and his wife, which was obviously ugly and not awesome.

And then the whole slap fighting thing has been weird. Yeah. Connor's been weird. Then Ariel keeps 10-7ing people and it just got weird you know it's like lots of conflict lots of just weird things going on and so like listen the ufc has a very strong roster and they've got strong broadcast partners they're going to be able to put out um even on a even on a year that's like not where not everything is going well they're still going to be able to produce a pretty good product, but there's complaints about the apex as well.

Still, I think UFC like two 90 was strong to 91 strong. And there's been a lot of other ones. There's been a lot of other ones that have been really strong. And you know what I would just say personally, I don't know how you feel, but I just feel like plus the UFC has got like guaranteed revenue. Like the business is fine in MMA.

There's nothing wrong with it, but what's happening in boxing is extraordinary. And the UFC is not like guaranteed revenue like the business is fine in MMA there's nothing wrong with it but what's happening in boxing is extraordinary and the UFC is not having that no no they aren't they could maybe they will soon maybe they will in the second half UFC had a lot of do the UFC has had a lot of extraordinary years and the way the market is set up it's probably likely to have more uh it's just that is it happening right now no it is not can i ask you a question about your mma fandom yeah and this will be the combination of you being a fan and a fan friendly interested journalist who loves great fights what has been the most redeeming most rewarding year watching mma in your existence Boy, that's a good one.

Well, you can't... So I first discovered UFC from a friend back in 1994. I mean, I guess that would be like, you know, the thing that planted the seed in my brain. But the year where I really just heavily leaned into it. Been watching it before, but I'm gonna say 2005 was a not my favorite year but that was a really big year for um really getting involved and doing stuff and then i would say probably 2000 like in the brock lesnar run 2009 ish 2010 Those were, man, those were big.

Those were big years in my life, for sure. There's something about having a lightning rod atop the sport, whether it was Lesnar, whether it was Rousey, or whether it was McGregor. And that's different than having a John Jones, GSP, Anderson Silva, consistent force. Now, Anderson Silva was more than just a consistent force. When he was doing Anderson Silva things at his peak, those were like chapters in our viewing lives where it's like, oh, my God, I was there when he front kicked Vitor watching or whatever. But you do need those times, Luke, when there's that rocket ship atop the promotion where you just have to tune in. And that's why I put Brock, Ronda and Conor together. connor together yeah right the lesnar years cannot be overlooked for that regard ronda was like a kind of a handoff between those two runs of brock to connor but dude connor's peak and i'm talking 2016 luke as the true peak there's never been a year in covering or watching mma like 2016

am i wrong i think i'm right i think i'm right yeah i mean i'm only telling you like personally which ones really had a big impact but there's no no doubt that the, the impact of Rhonda and Connor together and like not a huge gap between what Lesnar was doing. And then Rhonda Rousey kind of took off and then not a huge gap before Connor took off. Like there was a almost not quite a handoff, but there was really no, not a lot of downtime, let's say between these interesting, like lightning rods, you talking about, these peaks. And, dude, it just electrified the sport. So, dude, the UFC's had a really great long run.

Don't get me wrong. It's just, dude, 2023 for boxing is, golly, what a great year. It's consistent. The big fights have been happening. And then on top of that, they've delivered. On top of that, they've delivered. You know, I mean, and they don't even have here's the cool thing if somebody would have told you in advance that the biggest fights this year in boxing would be one-sided walkthroughs right a new way over fulton crawford over spence to some

degree tank over ryan and even though we loved ourselves some caleb plant in the build-up yeah benavidez kind of steamrolled him too but lu Luke, that didn't affect the fun. It didn't affect the aftermath. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, boxing typically gives you the fights you'll accept, but not the fights you want, and then a mixture of bad decisions and moments that make you get out of it. Man, this year's just been like they're going to stick the fist in and twist it a little but but no one's gonna get injured i don't know i don't know i don't know i mean these are all complicated scenarios and it's a little subjective well let me ask you you were turned off by the fist analogy that that's really where we're at right yeah yeah yeah yeah i mean you know in terms of my fandom it's like people are asking me these days

that's not exactly what you're asking me but i'm just sort of like pointing it out that people have been asking me oh you seem like more of a boxing fan these days and it's like well dude again it's like mma's having a bad year it's not really what i'm saying it's not really true and our producer mikey's pointing out march was strong with london and john jones no doubt about it um so again it's not like mma's fine uh but i in terms of all of my years covering boxing and again there's not there's plenty of people who have plenty more this is the most special year by far like by far by far by far uh and i covered some some ones that were i covered mayweather canelo i that's where i'm at bc i covered mayweather mac i covered mayweather pacquiao

and those were obviously bigger. You know, they did more business. But the stakes of this one felt like, you know, dude, here's the thing, man. When you cover enough boxing fights, you know what you realize is you can really begin to see how much bullshit is part of the narrative about what goes into justifying some of these fights, you know? Like, why is Pacquiao fighting this guy? And you would hear all these arguments about like why they were fighting and be like, I guess that accumulatively makes enough sense where you can understand why they did it. And like a lot of the fights this year, haven't been that they've been the ones that they, that you wanted that matter. There were direct, clear, understandable. And then with Spence Crawford, it's like, it needed nothing.

There was nothing else you needed to say about it. The authenticity was rock-solid diamond from beginning to end. And so just tell me, what have you seen in MMA and Islam getting after it? It's about the closest thing, and that is tremendous. But it's not on par with that. It's not on par with that. No, it isn't. But you're right. MMA has not had an awful year.

It's had a bad year PR-wise. We've had to basically fill time on our podcast with a lot of stuff we'd rather not be talking about in comparison to what we normally are talking about, which are great fights and which ones are coming next. But it is interesting. 2007, I just want to remind people that if you're boxing fans, look, in that one calendar year, you got Mayweather De La Hoya, Mayweather Hatton, Kodo Margarito won, Kessler versus Calzaghe, unbeaten champion. Dude, that's a sleeper fight.

Yep. Kodo versus Mosley at Madison Square Garden, which was one of the sleeper, great welterweight fights of this stretch. And that's just like the marquee events that but back then it was every week you were still getting banged pretty good you know what i'm saying i i believe me i i regret the fist analogy but good question there to start off from victor sanchez castro uh let's go over luke to 114th dream nine that's his name luke i don't know if that's a bob dylan reference or what. Do you guys believe that aliens have come here?

And if it were proven to be undeniably true, I think it is. Have you been watching those congressional hearings or whatever that thing was? Would you be shocked, amazed, anything at all? Luke Thomas, let's check in on your 2023 summer opinion. Is there a life beyond Earth and this what we know about the milky way have celestial terrestrial celestial beings touched down on this planet luke i mean i thought i heard some stuff where they admitted it right didn't they recently admit it that they've been so i mean i didn't follow it closely because i didn't have you know dude that's

spence crawford week which is i mean you didn't have, you know, dude, that's Spence Crawford week, which is, I mean. You didn't have room for aliens in your life that week? I mean, I didn't have, it beat the bags off of me. So all I saw were, you know, like passing articles that I got, you know, for 30 seconds to read. My understanding is that their testimony of the guys, because you remember there's a couple of guys like doing this during a congressional hearing.

I think the whole thing fell apart because, because a they don't have any like forensic evidence that's reliable and then more to the point i guess these guys have also like you know part of their scientific method is to use psychics and i was like uh that seems pretty disqualifying so i don't know if i believe them but i will tell you what man and also there were some uh god who reported this someone Someone reported recently, there had been some CIA documents that were over time declassified. And one of them was that they had Air Force pilots

doing media tours to do like, hey, we've seen evidence of UFOs, all to distract from some other kind of war making effort they were doing at the time. And like there's documents detailing it. So here's my view. My view on this is basically like, I am absolutely open to the idea. The universe

is enormous beyond human comprehension. You can compute it to a degree, but it is nevertheless expansive in the most dramatic of ways. Statistically it is only near certainty there's only a near certainty there's going to be other forms of life and advanced life whether they have made contact

with us i've not seen enough evidence yeah wake up people wake up i'm open i'm open to the idea i'm open i think it's real i mean i've never you know i haven't lived my life as like an alien truther or you know a telescope out my window trying to prove anything but on a 3 a.m drive home from ESPN one time I did see a flying object Luke that appeared and then over my head and then instantly disappeared at high speeds and then I asked the guy who was driving home behind me if he had seen that the next day at work and he said yeah and I have no idea what that was and it was weird I also believe that you know the whole thing on ghosts and spirits luke there's some dude there's a lot of stuff that's real luke but here's a more important question than my

beliefs on this would you demand alien life to present a positive covid test before you allow them to infiltrate you and pro do we have good ones for aliens and sub question to that is it cheating on your wife if it's alien sex luke i don't know i figured you'd be the one who could be the guy who did whippets in the back of an rv would be i think much better situated to tell me about about you know the buns with aliens luke if we ever could do a show, like we do room RSD 1.0 for fun once in a while, but you know, we're, we're, we're also actively trying not to get fired, but I would like to tell you on camera one time, maybe on a Patreon about certain nights where yes, I was dabbling in the recreational.

Yes. Extensively, but shit happened, Luke. And I'm never going to forget what it saw what i saw what it felt like like i've seen some shit luke okay not all the times that i've seen some shit hasn't been drug related by the way for the record that what are you what are you about to declare to me right here what is this the preamble no i have not crossed over to the other life and and consummated if that's the direction that you're going there's been no yeah necessarily i was just curious i've just had so i've had some moments luke i've had some unexplainable moments and then you're like i've had anything like that you know

i've had some things people won't be surprised by you know you know look there's a portion of our population on the show and by portion i mean 70 of our population because they're all your p1 mma only fans i hate this clown i think they literally think I'm like, do you remember those words that Bud Crawford used to describe Ellie Secbeck that we can't say anymore in 2023 at the press conference? The R word, yes. Yeah, I think people actually believe, Luke, that you found me on the side of the road, that I'm uneducated swine, although I am a very proud college dropout, in that I don't even have journalistic training or experience that that same bum that you refused to spot in your yard

could have been me and could have been your co-host. That's what people really think, Luke. I don't think that they think that at all. Why do you believe that? I hear things. I see things and I hear things, Luke. Same things I heard and saw with the aliens, to be fair. I don't know. I feel like you have a lot of people who, for good reason,

know that you are absolutely infantile and probably somewhat brain damaged, but nevertheless, occasionally humorous and, you know, otherwise tolerable. Well, the good thing about my humor, Luke, is even if it doesn't land like John Sts in game six of the 94 nba finals i'm gonna keep shooting you know what i'm saying i'm just gonna keep shooting practice makes perfect you know what i'm saying all right let's go back to another uh question oh so yeah so the alien thing yeah i do believe but look there's gonna have to one day be a moment where like the government admits it and then we have a press conference and then they like bring the alien out do you like do you think it'll look like when that happens all the you know movie tv based characters of aliens that

we've come to see et and bullshit or do you think that they're shapeshifters or is it more like the end scene in total recall spoiler alert when charles the guide reveals when he pulls his sleeve off that he's actually um you know part lizard and then his like arm came out it was after the third boob scene but do you think what do you think they're gonna look like luke us just a little different or what uh uh i think that uh even speculating in this direction is absurd yeah all right you know once in a while i mean if you think about like if you think about if you think about this like other forms of life have been here right so for example there have they have i don't know if they've ever collected it off a meteor but they

have collected off of rocks floating in space or maybe certain meteorite objects there bacteria that they discovered off of this rock essentially and like is this an alternate form of life like technically it would be it would be an alien form of life this bacteria that they discovered but you're what you're asking is like some kind of basically some civilization that has the capacity to cross vast expanses of the universe in order to make contact with us in covert and you know butt sex sort of ways i don't know i don't know about that luke because i don't know what type of parts they have that's why i question that so i mean i think a lot of this is just a lot of bored uh country bumpkins just making up shit but i'm open to the idea it could be true

that's what mk mailbag holiday episodes are a lot of country very true yeah very true uh luke from munching tiger 4330 is that different than the crouching tiger luke um dragon bro it's a good movie too what if judges had to wear headsets where they hear only the microphones above the cage so that would they would hear the impact of the shot as well impact is the word i read a lot while going through judging criteria criteria makes sense or not luke so luke he's saying an mma judge i guess it would work for boxing too would have an earpiece that's directly tied to a microphone that's hanging right above the head of the combat sports participants would that allow them to hear the impact well i, I got to tell you, you can tell.

I don't mean to demean the question because the question comes out of good faith place, right? So let's be let's treat it that way. kind of technical solution to a much bigger problem where it's like, Hey, what kind of like literally production equipment and production process can we use to ultimately solve a problem, which is how do we judge impact? Right. How do we judge damage? How do we, how do we make assessments of the visual assessments or the auditory assessments and then saying, Oh, we'll give you some kind of technological aid to bridge that gap. I mean, I'm not saying that couldn't, like I'm not saying technological aids aren't helpful,

like instant replay is helpful, having a monitor can be helpful, but these ultimately are complementary. They cannot supplant what needs a better process that needs to be in place and a better criteria and a better overall way of examining fights i don't think this i don't think like extra micro and by the way only ufc and shit like that could afford it what would regional promoters do you'd still get bad decisions if that's what your solution would ultimately be it's not really workable at scale either so no not not a good solution uh let's keep it going this is dak Dakota Hope 8028. What do you think Terrence Crawford's next move is?

Do you think he will eventually move up and fight Canelo? How do you think a fight between the two of them will play out? So, Luke, we're recording this early before it goes, but we don't think Crawford will have a fight or any real direction moving forward. But he has done some interviews of late and moving up to 154 and facing Jermell Charlo does seem to be the direction that he wants, not fighting boots and I said, one 47, not necessarily fighting Spence again, although I'm sure, you know, with the contract set up and the money, he would do that. You think that's, that's where we'll see him. I mean, if he has two fights left on his PBC deal,

which he does, what is the best hope for those? What is the most realistic hope for those two fights? We'll get to that Canelo part at the end or if you bring it up as an answer, but could it be Jermell, Charlo, and Canelo to round out the three-fight deal? That'd be insane, right? That'd be insane. The Canelo one I don't buy. The Canelo one I don't buy because I watched the interview that Crawford did with Ebro and Peter Rosenberg.

And in it, they're like, how far do you think you can go? He basically was like, realistically, because he was saying, you know, you could go pretty far. But like, you know, where winning and losing is a serious equation that matters. You're talking about up in weight, right? Yeah, up in weight. He was like, 154 is basically as far as he sees himself going. So the problem is, it's like,

now it's, I gotta tell you, dude, after what Crawford did, I wish we could be like, okay, let's stop this Charlo Canelo thing. I'm not sure who Canelo's gonna fight. Maybe it's David Benavidez. Maybe it's David Morel Jr. How about we just wait a little bit? Jamal, right? Jamal, right?

And then, fuck all that. Fuck even making a rematch with Spence. You send Bud Crawford to 154 right now, and he fights Charlo for all of those belts because I want to see Bud Crawford try something. If anybody has the right to try something this difficult, it is Bud Crawford. And I just feel like Charlo's going to have to get big to get to 168 to fight Canelo.

Is he really going to go right back down to 154? He says yes. Man, I don't know. I don't know. I'll believe that when I see it. You'd be more than happy if the last two fights on Bud's deal was Jermell Charlo and then Tim Zhu, it. You'd be more than happy if the last two fights on Bud's deal was Jermell Charlo and then Tim zoo,

right? You'd be more than happy. Yes. Yes. Okay. Regarding Tim's do would be a, would it be an interesting one too? Now let me talk about here about,

but at one 60 and the idea, now I don't even know if Canelo can make one 60 anymore. And even though Bud just had like the ultimate star making all time performance is Bud versus Charlo or Bud versus Canelo, like big enough that Canelo would be willing to cut pounds down. And you know, it's like, that's a question. It'd be a huge fight, but that's a question. I get and respect Bud voicing what he feels is his own physical limitations. And the idea that he thinks he could go up to 54 and be the same guy and potentially dominate, but would have questions

about himself and the danger. And I don't, you know, we flippantly talk about fantasy matchmaking at times in the combat sports world, sometimes because you get these rare aliens that do it. I mean, Inoue just keeps moving up and carrying the power with him. But Luke, I almost want to push back against Crawford's own built-in limitations. It's not that I'm not being respectful of the idea of how big of a leap it would be to go from welterweight 147 pounds to middleweight 160. It's rare that, you know, no one does that that instantly, right? It's usually if they get there over time. And typically, like great welterweights who have moved up to middleweight, you know, haven't always,

I mean, except for like Sugar Ray Robinson hasn't always performed great. You know, like Oscar found his ceiling pretty quickly at middleweight and realized that wasn't for him. Introducing the new McSpicy from McDonald's. It looks like a regular chicken sandwich, but it's actually a spicy chicken sandwich.

McSpicy. Consider yourself warned. Limited time only. I participate in McDonald's in Canada. But we talk so much heading into Crawford Spence about how big Spence is and Crawford looked like just as big with him, just as big as him and just as long as him. And he does have that perfect long frame that would add muscle, particularly shoulders and back, if he committed to this now again I don't know if Canelo would be motivated enough to ever make 60 again and you know the idea of Crawford going up to 168 to fight for I mean now we're getting like super video game fantasy matchup

like you're asking somebody to be packing like you're asking like ridiculous things but the the gap in skill level that ended up being the case between Spence and Crawford, maybe Luke, that is a – not an aberration. But maybe Crawford dominating him that easily was an aberration, meaning if they fought five times in a row, would all of them look as dominant in that way? You know, like maybe Spence had the worst night, maybe physically, maybe something. But dude, he could go up to 54 and I'm starting to think even 60. He's a huge, long welterweight and he wouldn't necessarily even need to put on a ton of muscle if he wanted to rely on speed more. Again, I'm not saying that punches two divisions higher won't, you know, be a real threat to

his chin and all this stuff. That's what all small fighters have to deal with. I just think he is so skilled, but has that also that backbone and that finishing mentality, that nasty mentality, that, yeah, he'd have to rely on a lot of movement and boxing for sure. Him versus Canelo, if they could ever do that at 160, dude, I'm not looking at that as unrealistic absurd all this i if it ever could happen dude i think crawford could win that fight luke and i don't think that's insane

or like completely unrealistic i don't like i said dude i'm not in a i'm not in a position to be like crawford can't do that i do think we have to be realistic like okay so let's talk about what you would say is just absolutely not on the table. 168 seems fucking impossible, right? I mean, that's just way, way too much, right? Okay, so you still think 160 is... I'm not saying he couldn't win fights at 160. I don't know how many belts he's winning up there versus 154. And by the way, Charlo, Jermel Charlo at 154, not a small guy at 154 at all.

Like, he's big. That's a tough fight for Bud under every single circumstance. That's what I'm saying. To me, I don't buy. Look, do you agree with this? People are just like, oh, Bud will kill Charlo. Dude, Charlo's a bad dude. I'm not saying I think he should be favored to win against Crawford at 154.

But Charlo's no chump, whether we're talking about Jermell going up to fight Canelo, which he is, and I don't think people are giving him as much of a chance. And if Bud came up, even though I think Bud should be the favorite, dude, we got to see what Bud would look like against Charlo's quick explosive counterpunching. I mean, that'd be something to watch right there. Yeah, I'm not saying that Jermell Charlo is as good as Bud Crawford. That is absolutely not the point that I'm making. However, remember, he has

all the belts at this weight class. I'm looking at the dude. The Castaño win is nice. Stopping Tony Harrison the second time that they fought. Jason Rosario was nice. Austin Trout. How about that win over Lubin? Dude, that fucking win where he blocked it and then

came up with the same punch on the same side, or rather with the same punch on the same side, or rather with the same hand anyway. Just absurd, absurd finish of Erickson Lubin. Don't forget about the Charles Hatley one. Luke Hatley never panned out from the amateur background he had, but I was at that knockout, dude. That was nasty the way he set that up and finished him, dude.

That was insane so but and also this is my point like he's very good he's not as he is technically skilled as bud crawford no i don't know you know not many guys are gonna be uh but he's good and he's big and that's a tough challenge and dude and also chart like jermell dude jermell is the better of the two i think and dude like that castaño win was nice. Like I didn't think he won the first fight. And then for him to come out and then beat Castaño, I'm going to say it one more time, dude, he accepted the fight on Castaño's terms and then beat him there.

Like that's big boy shit. Like you got to give that guy his credit, you know? Dude, seriously, a Crawford-Charlo fight for all the belts, which I don't even know can happen because as we even record this, they're talking about elevating Zu and one of the four sanctioning bodies and stripping Jermell. Basically, the news is that Jermell can enter the Charlo fight as the undisputed 154 champion. But the second the fight starts, he will be stripped, I believe, of the WBO, which would then be Zu upgrade. So it's political semantics. But with all that said, stylistically, like or in terms of knocking on the door to get you

fired up to be entertained, do Charlo versus Bud is going if they can get there as a hellacious fight. I would love that. But we do have to see the fallout, like you said, of how does Charlo do against Canelo? Does that lead him to want to move right from there up to middleweight you know i don't think so because there's money at the table he's been building to this zoo fight for a while he only took the canelo fight because brother wasn't ready um i think he would want to fight charlo to defend his gym luke right i think he would yeah and also i mean i mean not charlo uh but uh crawford bud crawford is what i'm saying i think charlo would want to fight Bud Crawford. That's what I'm saying.

Yes, yes, I agree. Yes, I do think he would take that. I think he thinks he can win that fight. And maybe he can't, but for sure, yeah. And also, let's say it one more time, dude. Bud Crawford turned into a star on Saturday night. He's a bona fide star. In fact, at the time this comes out,

I mean, I don't know what's going to happen, but I do know that in the coming weeks, let's say, I would expect you to see Bud Crawford go on a substantial media tour, a substantial one. So Bud Crawford's about to blow the fuck up, everybody. Wow. Luke Thomas in the house. All right, let's keep these questions going. Luke, would you grade the early questions we've read so far from our fans as decent?

Yeah, pretty good. Yeah, it's the first 20 minutes of Dune, you know. Okay, let's hear it. Yeah, Dune, man, don't get me going. Connor Voln 3510 is on the horn here. He says, I know MMA fighters routinely cut 20 to 25 pounds on fight week. How much do boxers typically cut? Is it the same amount?

I know wrestlers were the ones that started bringing weight cutting into fighting luke i have known from hearing things covering boxing for years that it's definitely substantial weight cutting like mma and there are definitely at times fighters that are weight bullies like julio cesar chavez jr quickly became a clown but there was a point where he was a viable middleweight, even want to title because he'd fight smaller fighters and, and rehydrate to basically a cruiserweight and just be this zombie that is walking you down forever.

And when he was taking things more seriously back then he could box a little and go to the body and just overwhelm you. But I don't think they are cutting as massive. Every once in a while, Brandon Rios was a very dangerous cutter. He'd cut 25 pounds overnight, like just stupid numbers. But I think it's more prevalent in MMA and, by extension, amateur wrestling, tell me if I'm wrong, to do these routine, ridiculous, oversized cuts that inevitably put you one step closer.

Yeah, there's no denying. I mean the the reasons for it are pretty simple like you know obviously like the more a community does something the better they're going to be at it right so like the wrestlers do have you know good practices on losing weight how healthy they are i don't know but like in terms of accomplishing the goal of making the weight that they've got you know they've got a refined process relatively speaking that's the first thing i'd say but also like of accomplishing the goal of making the weight, they've got a refined process, relatively speaking. That's the first thing I'd say. But also, it's just the demands are different. Now, if you're wrestling a tournament and you're really trying to advance,

this can get complicated. But remember, BC, if I'm wrestling, what am I wrestling for? Two minutes, three minutes, these bursts? That's just so different from boxing where if you have a 12-round bout and then you have one minute in the middle, dude, we're talking, you know, even an MMA bout with one minute in the middle is only 30. Just the 36 minutes from the 12 rounds is more than that. Then you add in all the other ones. And I know you're not getting beat on. I'm just saying it lengthens the process in those middle stages.

And so it's just much more taxing, much more unforgiving. And so boxers have not been, I think as willing to make some of those demands. And MMA is weird too. Cause like, you know, back when guys made substantial cuts, like,

you know, Matt Hughes or whatever, they would still just wrestle you and get on top where they're fighting you on like completely advantageous terms and like little wrestling terms, you know? Um, but now in modern MMA, we know how bad it is.

It's harder to pull that off blah blah blah but guys still cut a lot in mma they still cut a lot yeah i wish people would fight at their own weight and be healthier and yeah but you know luke people want the edge right that's why they use performance enhancing drugs they want that edge when people say i'm they're looking for any edge they're looking for any edge, they're looking for any edge. They're looking for drugs. And also whippets in the back of an Arby's.

I mean, could I say I'm proud of that, Luke? No, but a jamocha shake in one hand, a beef and cheddar in the other, some good friends. I've never had a... Let me ask you let me ask you here's my mailbag here's my mailbag oh wow yeah hanging low indeed yeah yeah like doug

stanhope says like pulling the pizza slice away from the pie the cheese just stretches i'd like okay uh what would you okay you take me into an Arby's. We're on a best friend date. Yeah. I like this. Okay. Here we go. Your job is to convince me with one order and you can't, you can order a bunch of stuff,

but you can't overwhelm me. No, I got it. It's the only order. Let me set it up. You got to make sure I get an order that convinces me to come back a second time. What am I eating at Arby's? You are eating the best meal that they offer.

The timeless classic that's still available all the time. And the only one I ever eat every three years when I come back into an Arby's and rekindle that nostalgia. They're just hard to find in Connecticut. They're very random. But beef and cheddar, or most likely get two beef and cheddars side of curly fries. Now I'm going to force you though, to put ketchup on one of the beef and cheddars and Arby's sauce on the other. Arby's sauce is like this combo of ketchup and barbecue kind of with something else in there. It's not overpowering. It's, it works out. And then Luke, you got to get the Jamocha shake, which is, I believe it's well, that's, you know,

the mocha part of it. It makes sense, but there's almost like a banana taste in that mocha as well. It's, it's an incredible shake. I just think that that's the experience. I know RB has tried to pivot into not just having the meats, Luke, like, you know, I think that meal would change you, Luke. As a fast food meal, it's like gourmet fast food to me. Maybe it's but again, maybe it's because I didn't have access. You had to go to Waterbury. You had to go deep into Waterbury to like the north end. Like you had to go. You had to want to be there was right next to the Long Hill Projects, Luke, where you could go through the weed drive through set up. They had to like dodge the police car like there was a lot. And then if it was hot, and I don't mean temperature, Luke. I mean police presence.

You'd have to get out of your car and go behind the fence, and then you're risking your life. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah. Mikey, is BC right about the Arby's order? What do you think? Type it in.

He says, I don't know. You don't go to Arby's he says fuck so wait mikey grew up mikey you grew up in jersey in your formative years i know that's a big white castle area is there not arby's white castles that we had so in the south we had the exact same thing as white castle it was called crystal dude crystal rules can i tell you a crystal story yeah ever hang out with brett okamoto luke not to bang him just to hang out with him okay i have in the past yes i mean look you know what you wanna you wanna said about him he is a fitness guru that guy luke he doesn't put anything foul in his body he's a you know he he you know what i mean so i was we were driving around atlanta ufc 201 week luke

remember that card what was the main event at ufc 201 ufc i don't remember robbie lawler versus um tyron woodley oh that's where he won the title yeah yeah yeah uh rose versus carolina in the main by the way um and i you know like, dude, can you pull over like a fast food or something? I got to crush something. I was in between meals, but I needed to crush something. Luke, that's pre-black liver diagnosis, by the way. It was a little more loose in turn four, like the intimidator, RIP. But we go up to the drive-through and dude, I used to hit crystals on the drive to Florida as a kid, right? They're all over the South, along with Shoney's breakfast buffet, which I can't wait to hear you talk about how many times you've torn up Bristol's on the drive to Florida as a kid, right? They're all over the South, along with Shoney's Breakfast Buffet,

which I can't wait to hear you talk about how many times you've torn up Big John's style in Tokyo, that restroom at Shoney's. But Luke Thomas, I'm actually talking about, I was like, all right, Brett, I got like six singles. Let me get off their dollar menu. Let me get like, you know, cheeseburger, like onion rings, mozzarella sticks. Like, dude, I was going like around the globe. It was like the Epcot beer and wine tour, but in fast food form. And that man, Brett Okamoto, who was driving, not only refused to order anything from this, this sloppy hellhole

in his words, Luke, but he refused to touch it when the drive-thru person passed it through the window. And he was so turned off by how like just despicable my order was from top to bottom and you know what dude crystal is solid man solid i'm not surprised i'm not surprised uh okamoto did that that sounds about right i would have i would have indulged a little bit i definitely would have indulged a little bit i can't lie i mean dude you hit up a shoney's breakfast buffet as a kid right they were they're all over the south i don't think i ever did that my mom my mom my mom was ahead of the curve in like talking us out of eating processed foods she knew back in the 80s my mom so that's the thing like like my mom grew up you know people always talk about the mediterranean diet dude that was just how my mom ate yeah i mean like before i ever had a name my mom would eat all of that and when i i remember once

i'm looking when someone's like we gotta have a mediterranean diet and then you'd look at it's like dude this is all the shit my mom made me as a kid all the time you know so that's pretty that's pretty awesome that she was yeah so we she would she would never we would eat like you know my dad because my parents were obviously divorced so like my dad would take us to mcdonald's and stuff like that so i definitely had it but it was pretty sparingly relative to people whose parents were just like whatever you know yeah yeah my parents were definitely like whatever but i think it's because luke you know my parents grew up in the late 50s in the 60s so i think to them as kids going to earlier mcdonald's my theory, I think that they still looked at it as like a restaurant, not a elbow, armpit grease hellhole, right? So by the time we came around, dude,

we had McDonald's like once a week for dinner. And that doesn't count like the times you're driving and you can like convince your parents with like a last minute, you know, to get like milkshakes or fries or something, right? No, that was like one meal a week was like yeah we'll go to mcdonald's i think they just didn't know better but then dude the 80s was in there and especially the 90s was the breakout it was the peak of processed food dude i think 75 of the meals i ate in high school were you know heated up in the microwave and or yeah or were dude i would put plastic in the microwave back then all the time like all the stuff you wouldn't do now all that's okay how about this my mom never had a microwave in the house wouldn't allow it wouldn't allow it okay so when i you want to if you wanted to pull fries for example out of the freezer and

just you know bang some out and just eat some dog you had to preheat the oven you had to lay you had to lay them out on tin foil you know what i'm saying like on a on a tray and then we had to lay them out on tin foil, you know what I'm saying, like on a tray, and then we had to bake them. So it was always easier just to eat whatever she was willing to make or that kind of stuff. Like what? Like soy chips and plantains? No, no, no, no, no, no. But for example, we always had rice on hand. Just always. There was always rice. We always had rice.

My mom always had salads. Every day we had salad. Every single day of my had rice my mom always had salads like every day we had salad like every single day of my life with my mom um and so she was also a good cook so on occasions there would be pastries and stuff like that and uh you know obviously you ate a lot of animal protein but i grew up on hummus i grew up on sabouli i grew up on like the stuff was just always around that's actually awesome and and it's great to have that in your sort of foundation that is natural for you um but Luke I think I said this before I'm you're not going to be surprised when I moved out when I was 21 and got a third floor

dirt hole apartment literally over the town green in my town like remember on the documentary when I was like dancing around the town green, like the apartment was like right there. 25 cent beers at Melissa's Cafe, right? A couple, like a block over. But dude, I didn't use the stove one time in the five years that I lived there, Luke. One time a girlfriend cooked me mac and cheese on that stove. I didn't use the stove or the oven one time in five years. Do you realize I had, because my aunts knew that I had moved out. So like for Christmas, they'd buy me like a Costco size row of like chef boy, RD cans. So like a 50

pack or something, dude, I had mounds of those in my kitchen on the floor. And I mean, that was, that was a lot of my meals. Do you know how, no wonder why I have a black liver? Like, do you know how, cause all my other meals were just takeout. It was takeout and chef boy RD, dude. I, you know, Luke, I probably could have died. Like I used to play pick a ball in my twenties and fall to a knee and not, and not be able to see. Cause it'd be all like blotches of colors. Like I was that out of shape at times. Yeah. That's not my upbringing. I mean, don't get me wrong when, you know, it was time for dad to watch us. There was a lot of

del taco in the back of the car let there be let there be no mistake about it but dude my mom was my mom was a when it came to that kind of stuff she was a disciplinarian man all right all right you what do you ever think about breaking out that whip and being like tuki your days of eating sweets are over no not we don't have to fight her too hard, but what bums me out is when she was a baby, when she was six months old, we took her to Columbia, and we were at some restaurant,

and it was a big family dinner, my wife's family, and someone at the table actually ordered hummus, and the consistency is soft for a six-month-old to eat, basically. And so I was like, she was hungry, and I didn't know what else to feed her, so I tried to her some and she loved it she loved it oh and it was so touching for me right i was like oh my god here's my daughter eating hummus yeah you know my mom my mom would be so happy you know and uh and then like a year later she's like i hate hummus it's gross and i'm like no yeah yeah she did i have to work on it now

does your dad try to get a head start diplomatically and teach her like about global politics and stuff no all right he keeps it pretty basic okay that's fair that's fair i didn't know what his limits were. I love that guy. I'm sure he will if he's around long enough. He'd be like, when I was in Doha, come over here because I got a story for you.

He'll definitely tell me anything I ask. For sure he'll do that. Luke, this is Corey Pope 7400. He's trying to ask us our top five most exciting active fighters in the ufc but i feel like we have done that before in different various ad nauseum ways so luke i got two different questions for you related to this you would you rather answer his question or my two related ones why don't't you go first, and then I'll go second. How about that?

Luke, who are your five favorite active boxers to watch? Well, you got to put Bud Crawford on that list. I mean, it kind of starts with him. So then it's got to be Boots Ennis after that. Okay. Then it's got to be active boxers, right? then it's got to be active boxes right uh artur buterbiev oh yeah by the way he just pulled out of that callum smith fight he got hurt yeah he can't stop getting hurt that guy um probably because he's training like a maniac yeah so those those three for sure then i guess you'd put Inouye on that list for me.

Again, this is not a ranking of the best and all that stuff. I mean, it's kind of like these guys are all champs, but I'm just telling you which ones I've gotten the most joy from or whatever. And then last on that list, ooh, that's a tough one. You've got to have Tank. Come on, you've got to have Tank. Yeah, it's got to be Tank.

It's got to be Tank. The Benavidez plant fight was really good. Yeah, and I've never been a Tank super fan, and gotta have tank yeah it's got to be tank it's got to be tank the tank is the benefit of this plant fight was really good but yeah and I've never been a tank super fan and and you know like sometimes you just get attached to guys you're like okay that's my guy like like Spence has been my guy it's probably no surprise that I picked him although I think there was great justification if that was the lane you went but yeah tank spent still dude Spence makes just such high skilled fun fights I I don't I don't know if he's. I don't know how he's going to bounce. Look, there are people, Kenny Porter.

There's a lot of people saying he should retire. I don't know if that's fair. Doesn't that seem extreme? I think until you've seen him at 154, it's not fair. I will say that. I think until you've seen him at 154, it's not fair. But BC, this is what I've been thinking of. And I told you, man, Bud Crawford was so right.

You've got to watch this interview with Rosenberg and Ibro. Hot 97? Yeah, I haven't seen it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And basically what he says in there, he was right. He's like, when Spence came back and he had the Danny Garcia fight, he looked good, but he didn't look all the way back. And then what was the other one?

It was the Ugas. It was a Porter fight too or whatever. He didn't look himself in. But what he was saying was by the time he got to ugas he said he looked sensational and that's exactly what i said to you last week because it's true like to me he looked by the by the time the ugas fight came around he did look good so there's these questions of like what does the what is the retina surgery what is the car crash the horrible car crash and then you know what did it all amount to it's like well if you look good in the ugas fight maybe nothing but now you add in this beating he took from bud

that went for nine rounds it probably could have gotten stopped before that um dude at some point all of that has to weigh into something the car crash the surgery the beating bud gave him like this has to end like there's no way he's the same guy at this point i just feel like i went before you're gonna get a better look he's also kind of lived hard even separate from the crash luke and the recovery like a big part of the undisciplined attack he had against porter which was the fight that was like two weeks before that big accident was that he was you know he was drinking a lot in between camps and was you know like there was that time when he got in the ring after, after Sean Porter beat Danny Garcia in Brooklyn, Spence got in the ring and they kind of did a little back and forth

to set up their pay-per-view, which was going to be next. And I don't know if you remember that Luke, but Spence, he did like the, we good friends. I love your daddy. Well, let's get it on. But he did like a press afterwards at like the press conference. And dude, he was like hammered, like slurring his speech. Okay. Not a big big deal you can go out to a fight and get loaded whatever but what we found out after the fact from the accident was that he was very undisciplined in in blowing up in weight between camps during that sort of prime original run and we just didn't really realize it so while it's good that he was able to turn that around and use that you know his body's been through a bit and even in these most recent wins like the ugas one he was able to turn that around and use that. You know, his body's been through a bit.

And even in these most recent wins, like the Ugas one, he was, you know, he was right there in the pocket, willing to trade and eat punches. He also has had like years off, a year off at a time between fights and didn't fight at all in 2021. So that can make it hard. Because notice, the one thing he didn't say after this loss to Crawford was, first of all, he wouldn't give an excuse, which I respect, but he wouldn't lean on the weight cut he never brought it up he only brought up that his timing was off so you just have to wonder that when you are when you are when you have these other factors and that's not to make excuses but trounced him and probably you know

would have under any circumstance from based on that experience but um you might not you know like it's gambling when you're off for a year a year and a half and then you try to come back for a super big fight you're gambling that especially at this age now in his 30s that you're just going to be 100 everything's going to click when you're not active you're always taking that risk and sometimes it clicks and sometimes it doesn't there's a lot of other factors too which i don't think we weigh in even for established fighters fighters, confidence, doubt, things like that. So it is kind of a perfect, an imperfect formula to produce the best out of a fighter on any given night.

But I don't know, Luke, at the end of the day, Crawford, yes, deserves all the flowers from that win. And yes, I do think we have right to be, to question Spence's actual future, but I still can't get over that he wasn't competitive at all. Almost like I'm trying to find what was the answer. What was the reason why? Let me tell you something. And again, I've kind of been discussing this.

I can't remember who we've talked to. We literally talked about this 20 minutes ago. It wouldn't surprise me. I'm just kind of all over the place. But I had a talk with someone inside the industry today in boxing, and they asked me, what did you think? How bad was the weight cut? And you and I have talked about this. We think it matters enough that you have to acknowledge it, but it's not really what decided it. It's just not. What decided it is Bud's extraordinary skill and performance, right? That's what decided

it. So I do think you'll get something different at 154, but given the skill gap, you would favor Bud. But I will say this, BC, the layoff after Ugas, I think that played a big role because if you go back and you listen to Derek James in the corner, he is telling Spence not only to do stuff that Spence wasn't doing but it's stuff he's done in other fights dude like I noticed it from the tape study he was saying all the things I'm like oh my God dude this is like straight from the Kell Brook fight

or one there's a different stance but like some one of the attacks he wanted him to do on the inside and I was like dude he is off he's completely off now I think Bud dropping him in the second round clearly had an impact and rattled him and then he just people like oh he didn't have a this is the other part too like oh he didn't have a another game plan well no he didn't have a counter fighting but like his a game ladies and gentlemen Errol Spence's a game is before he fought Bud Crawford overwhelming against every every stance, every body type, every style, everything he had ever faced, it swallowed all of it. It's just against Bud, there was simply nothing he could do. But I think the fact that he was so out of rhythm, which Bud's skill gap exacerbated, honestly, I think that had more to do with the result than the weight cut.

That's a personal opinion. Yeah, and I don't say any of that to take anything away from uh yeah no we didn't need that um to take anything away from bud obviously it's just that look we've covered spence a long time it was shocking that that there were you know he tried he tried to have moments there were no moments more or less in the end uh you rounded out your five favorite boxers i think you gotta have usic in there for me personally shaker stevenson jermell i mean i could just keep naming but it's like how about benavides and morel both those guys i think are really fun to watch there's there's a there's a huge amount right now and the best part is all these guys for the most part are young i could add teo fimo in there he's a reality show you have to watch him luke in that

there but i wanted to spin off this guy's question cory pope 7400 and you think i'm going to entrap you but i'm not luke he wanted to know your five favorite active ufc fighters to watch but again we've done that so what are your five favorite female ufc or mma fighters to watch and again i'm not trying to trap you about looks or instagram or only like all time or right now no No, active fighters right now. Which five females are you, like, does their game make you the most intrigued when you watch? That's a good question. Let me see. Let me think about that.

For sure, Blanchfield. Erin Blanchfield. Got to be top of that list. She is an exciting moment. Tatiana Suarez. Yep. For sure her. Dude, how about Dern?

She's got to be in there too. She was, and she fell out, and then she had that last performance. So now I guess she's on the bubble for me. Yeah. She might be going to the NIT. I'm not sure if she's going to play in the round of 64. I'm still trying to decide. Okay, so those two for sure you know I would

say Shevchenko I think that there's a lot of people online that are horny for her and it's overwhelming and off-putting but her skill and her accomplishment have been important and I've enjoyed watching it she's brilliant to watch I think even when the fights get boring and sometimes they are if her opponents don't engage I just think she's brilliant to watch. It's yeah, for sure. Obviously I have great appreciation for John Wiley, but I don't know if she's like,

I mean, it, because she's champion, it is destination viewing. I just don't have the same kind of, uh, sentimental attachment in that way. I'm trying to think,

dude, are we, Oh, you know what? Um, maybe stamp Fairtex, know oh yeah she puts on fun fights bro like they're not there's there's a high charisma entertainment value into that and when she mixes it with savagery it's it's it's worth a watch yeah definitely i i feel like like i don't know it's weird i I the women's game you know for example like someone like Erin Blanchfield

I'm so glad she's here because this next generation of well-roundedness the the modern MMA game she can do all the things that a modern MMA fighter supposed to do and then certain things exceedingly well and she's she's like vicious and mean uh you like this is what you want right like a young person who like she's like she she reminds me of ilia toporia or vice versa like these young guns who are already so skilled just kind of like mowing people down like you really love it but the women's game i feel like maybe several years ago around the time of ronda just had more personalities that were bigger you know and i don't know what to attribute that to um maybe the media coverage of the women's game maybe it's just you know it ebbs and it flows i don't know but i feel like stamp fair

text like i don't know that i rate her on the way that i would rate you know i don't watch her for the same reasons i would necessarily watch erin blanchfield but one has done a good job of celebrating her personality and it makes a difference in the end you know yeah absolutely i'm with you on that i still think rose is the most interesting female fighter to watch luke these the fights are always always something going on in those fights for sure he's great um great look david kirsch five nine six four has a wordy question this is kind of interesting guarantee that's his pin number so if you get his credit card just drain that fucker's bank account um wow with the reports of disney thinking about selling small stakes of espn to leagues like the nba and nfl instead of seeing espn outright instead of selling espn excuse me do you think that endeavor could be one of the companies that they sell a stake of ESPN to?

If Disney goes down that route, and if so, how do you think that would impact the number of cards in UFC per year and the quality of the cards? So, Luke, they're saying if parent company Disney starts selling pieces of ESPN and Endeavor buys it, would that give them more influence to, or how would that affect their i i'm just completely of the belief that like here's how you know me and bc are old i think i i don't know you can pull the camera back there yeah this is usually where i touch myself while

luke talks so please thank you yeah i bet you do sick arby's eating bastard um but uh oh god now you got me derailed what the hell are we talking about disney and stock and oh yeah yeah i mean that's how you know we're old it's like i think sports journalism is basically going away i think the sports influencer world and it's sort of a broad term for a lot of different things that get called influencer that aren't necessarily that way but anyway you get the idea um any like all of these old legacy media outlets and media businesses right now in trouble and in a lot of different ways and i just like you know people asking tough questions making it hard everything is about brands working together everything is about um you know uh like no one is trying to work. Everything is about access. Everything,

everything is about like shutting up about any bad questions, taking the money where it's coming from, celebrating who the people are, you get told to celebrate and then moving on to the next job the next week over. Like all of, all of the stuff that sports journalism used to do is so clearly going away i don't know where it's going to go there's some market for it i don't know so to your point i absolutely think if they put it up for sale endeavor would try to buy it whether they would i don't know but i think they would and if they did i one billion percent believe like dude when does the ufc buy something and then soft touch it, it's just not what they do. It's not what they do. What they do is control.

What they do is fastball. What they do is that all the time. It's what they know. It's been their key to success. It's been their key to domination. They're not about to change it now. 1,000% they would use that to leverage more favorable coverage, guaranteed. Yeah, yeah, I don't think that's a rule that we should.

Is this just a slow play to get slapdick on the uh plus luke i you really need to consider something i don't know if you've been following it because now i mean we'll talk about this in the show tomorrow i mean so this will be a repeat from what we've already talked about by the time people see this because we're in a weird space in the space-time continuum but this the abc had a meeting in las vegas over the week. Have you been paying attention to this at all? No. No, I don't typically pay attention to things.

Luke, you know this. Well, dude, I got to tell you, a lot of it's no big deal. A lot of it is stuff that doesn't really matter, minor adjustments to some kind of esoteric rule, or here's some on-the-job training for referees and whatever, stuff that doesn't necessarily impact his day-to-day. But some of the job training for referees and whatever stuff that wasn't, doesn't necessarily impact his day to day, but some of the bigger stuff is, and it turns out that Colorado's commission for sanctioning one is kind of on

the outside looking in number one, like they are apparently like, I don't know if they've been ostracized fully, but Mike Mazzulli took to Twitter to kind of like chastise him about sort of misrepresenting something. And, you know, other people speaking to this have kind of indicated

that Colorado has been somewhat, you know, pushed out a little bit. But the bigger part is a UFC rep went up there and said quite clearly they want to sanction it, slap, in 50 states. And, dude, these commissions clearly don't view themselves as watchdog. They view themselves as a little bit more like chamber of commerce is what I would say, where they're kind of trying to find a way to create favorable environments. There was that article about the Utah Central Commission

basically paying for UFC to come out there and doing what they were doing twice in a row. But there were doctors that did, ringside physicians that were saying some of the seizures from slap are the worst they've ever seen. The point I'm trying to make is if the UFC really believes they can make money off SLAP, and if they believe that they can do this on the cheap, which is what I think they can do, and they can use their regulatory might to force the states to do it, and then the states who don't, don't get UFC, well, dude, all of a sudden, slap is now much more a part of the culture

because it has truly been forced into it in a way where all of the things that were supposed to be in place to stop it no longer can. I got to tell you, people are like, why are you down on MMA these days? I got to tell you,

there's some stuff happening I don't really like all that much. This is top of the list. Look, we don't typically get biblical on this show, but I don't know if you've read Revelations. Do you think slapstick is ultimately the mark of the beast, Luke? The mark of the least. No.

Yeah. Yeah, I'm not getting that mark on me. All right, I have very few minutes left, Luke. So at ryev3, what is your favorite discontinued foods that's a hot that's a trigger dude you know what shut down and i forgot to tell you so i i actually hadn't been in forever because i was like someone what was the last time i went to burger king i don't even know i don't know i don't know struggling burger king yeah yeah so dude there was a burger king in the northwest side of town here in dc you can look this up um they just shut it down maybe like a

month ago or so something maybe a little bit longer than that but like recently and inside it was the last burger king in america filled it with like from top to bottom with all the 80s nostalgia, all the Back to the Future, E.T., you name it, kind of like figurines and wall art. And the booths were made back in those old 80s style. They had preserved, basically, 80s Burger King Americana. They shut it down, bro. It was the last one. Can you believe that?

That pisses me off as a long time connoisseur of that type of bullshit but look you know i'm gonna be fair i've never been a bk guy i've certainly absolutely dominated a lot in my life but i've never been a and that's like the meat patties are too dry even when they cook them they're too dry yeah there's a lot in general i don't like wendy's like for example wendy's makes the double and the triple stack, but their burgers are real greasy. It all fits together. Burger King, it always feels like you're just eating three different layers of wallpaper.

Yeah, so you ever injure your right wrist, and then you have to wipe with your offhand, Luke, and it's just like you're trying to get in that rhythm. It's just the worst. You'd be standing. Only when I stand. Yeah, only when I stand. Yes, but I feel like eating Burger King is like the fast food version of that.

It just feels like in an alternate universe. Like McDonald's was like the main one, and then Wendy's was like special because we didn't have it available in a short drive. But, yeah, Burger King was always like that wannabe to me, Luke, okay? Yeah, it's not my favorite either. It's not my favorite either. All right, then I'll have to do it Luke I've got dinner to attend to

it's been a pleasure you know feeling up this bag the mail bag of these people these male P1s Luke it would be Shakespearean if not ironic don't you think or whatever the term should be if you die by the sword of an MKP one one day.

There's like a poetic justice in that. There is. It'd be sad. I'd mourn you to a certain degree, but there would be sort of an epic level of poetic justice to that. I mean, getting knifed at a uh you know a bar for some tweet up would be quite appropriate i feel like getting shivved yeah that'd be good i mean that's the way that's the mk way right there calling someone's tattoo like rough someone just comes and knifes

me right between the six and seven oh that's a sour note and i'm luke i'm sorry about that uh thank you look you want to take us out of here? I'll just sit here and hope that, yeah. No, what is your order tonight? Tell us what you're eating and then we'll go. Well, I'm going to the chop house. And you know, I am allowed one beef meal per week.

So I haven't done the steak. Steaks hurt. I mean, they hurt bad, Luke. My liver's not made for steaks anymore. But I'm thinking about doing steak. Ooh. Okay. Well, don't you go dying on me. Either that or else.

You know, I've been getting the scallops lately when I'm not paying. I'm not a scallop guy. I'm not a scallop guy. I mean, when done right, it is. They're good. They're good. I've eaten them. I eat them.

But I'm not a scallop guy. Scallop guys are weird. If they miss on it, it sounds like a cover band and it tastes gross. You know what I mean? Like, it's like, there's times when, I don't know. I feel like barbecue ribs is the same thing, Luke. It has to be top shelf or I can't do it. It's like, you know what I mean?

Okay. All right. All right. I think we're done. That's Brian Campbell. I'm Luke Thomas. Leave us a review. Please don't fire us.

Bye, everyone.