MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Vacation Recap | Holloway Def. Allen | Edson Barboza | Top Debut Albums | BC's Live Chat Ep 4

Episode Date: April 17, 2023

BC is back from vacation and here to break down everything that happened while he was gone. Brian discusses his vacation, Max Holloway's win over Arnold Allen, sets the table for Gervonta Davis vs. Ryan Garcia and much more. (5:00) - Max Holloway Defeats Arnold Allen (42:30) - Edson Barboza vs. Billy Quarantillo  (61:00) - Sports Podcast Awards  (67:00) - Vacation Recap  (77:00) - Live Chat 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

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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. Oh, right. Wow. Right. We're back, baby. We're back with a bang. Right. Wow. Hey, I'm just as happy to see you as you are me. Right. It's Monday, April 17th, 2000 and 23. This is a hybrid. This is Morning Combat, by the way, the multi-time award-winning combat sports showcase and really the best damn show you have going on in your life right now. I got the statutes to prove that, okay? The statutes. Let's talk about this a little bit of hybrid today. BC, Brian Campbell, your host today. My co-host is with the mostest, Luke Thomas. Just swap places with me on the family vacation.

You're just going to have to deal with that. But today we got a fantastic show for you today. Not only a fired the hell up BC fresh off the plane from a 10 day family world tour, or maybe US tour, or maybe just a tour of the Rocky Mountains. We'll get into more detail later. But we got a great fight card. We got a recap from UFC Kansas City. And of course, we've got to build up that foundation and set the stage for what goes

on this Saturday, Las Vegas Showtime pay-per-view. Ryan Garcia, Tank Davis. Oh my God, it's going to happen, right? Can't wait so much to do today. So today's kind of like a BC live chat mix with a little bit of that structure that you get from the normal MK. But it's your boy BC Solo. Okay. All that. And then some tall, pale and handsome. Some of you are like, oh, God, now I got to get this guy's take. Oh, did he really score that fight for Allen?

What was he betting on him? No. He may have been sitting in the eighth row, though. Okay. So you got to take that with a grain of salt. I rewatched it. We're good now. But fired up to be back for uh with you we'll get into the family vacation and all those great details here you don't really care do you probably not you just

want your mma and you want it now if you came here from luke thomas but uh you know the old adage come to mk for luke thomas stay for the damn bc Thank you. Thank you people. Okay. Thank you for being you all the way on that. Uh, special thanks on the ones and twos, Mikey more mile of CBS sports. And of course, uh, the labels that pay us Showtime, you can get 30 days free right now. And this is not only a loaded weekend with Showtime pay-per-view and please make sure you watch episodes one and two of All Access, Davis Garcia. But don't forget, Bellator is in Hawaii this weekend, Friday and Saturday night. So you got a lot of reasons to get 30 days free right now on Showtime.com.

Thank you to all the people that put the money in our pockets. There you go. You can get that. You can pound sand on the end if you don't like it, but I know you will like it, right? I mean, you know, you'll be watching Boxing MMA and W. Kamau Bell's fantastic. We got to talk about Bill Cosby, Doc, that I don't think gets enough love. And did you catch Lightning Lee Murray's Catching Lightning, Doc, yet? Holy crap, was that great, that four-part series.

Don't miss that. Pat Condellus and folks did a fantastic job on that one. All right, we started a little bit late. Let's shorten the intro. I don't think I got anything to sell. Do I, Mikey? I mean, I got AG1 right here. What else do I need, right? Athletic greens, baby. Yeah, right. I think they rebranded to just AG1, by the way, kind of like what Duncan did. Remember, they used to be about the donuts. Now they're, yeah. All right. right nothing to sell but myself right uh great to be back at it and i

did get off the plane in time to catch what was a rollicking saturday night fight night card ufc kansas city it's been a while since the company the promotion has been there and uh what a fun night of fights and what a return to greatness from 31 year old living legend. I don't throw that around often, by the way, I say that right now about Dustin Poirier, Robert Whitaker. I'm saying, you know, obviously Volkanovski and guys like that. Obviously we should be saying that about one max blessed Holloway, the main event, a five round key featherweight tilt against rising and almighty Arnold Allen went the way of a unanimous decision across the board for Max Holloway. First and foremost, hell, was that loud enough? Did that pierce your cochlea there as you're doing your yard work here to BC? You're

getting down. That was a hell of a fight. Not a fight of the year contender per se, but a great five-round showcase of elite talent, skill, technique, defense, pace, everything across the board. It was theater, and I loved it, by the way. They were perfect dance partners for each other in the end. And what made this a great fight, along with everything I just said, how about the fact that both were elevated? It really in a big way from it, when you can get that to happen on the super elite level, you had yourself a fun night of business. Obviously there's a lot to talk about, about where each fighter is going and what we learned here and what we learned first and foremost, regardless of how you scored it, the three judges, by the way, scored it for Max Holloway, as they should have, 49-46, 49-46, and 48-47. We'll get into Ariel Helwani and Brian Campbell's bootleg row eight

delta scoring in a second. But what did we learn first and foremost? Max Holloway is an all-time great, which we already knew. But what made that key about this time in this large step forward, where obviously the question's coming in two straight fights in which he endured a lot of damage. One, a very close win over Yair Rodriguez, who is now going to be fighting for the world title against Volkanovski. He has the interim strap does Yair. And then the second one, a shellacking in his third meeting against current champion Volkanovski, which let's be fair here.

Max got, Max got beat up. He got bloodied. He got, is it too far to say he got the shit kicked out of him? Maybe, maybe out of respect for one of the all-time greats. It led us to believe we could be seeing the beginning of the end for this great legend. But what did we get instead? We got a great, great fighter going back to the drawing board, figuring out what went wrong in those two fights, even though one of them was a victory, and retooling. So I called this a couple times on Twitter, essentially Vintage Max, and I got a lot of people going, oh, BC, what's a Vintage Max? It's like New Max.

I don't mean vintage in the same old Max in terms of the game plan and performance, but vintage in the crispness of Max. Vintage in the virtuoso ways that Max can control a fight. Obviously, the reference point here is that Calvin Cater five-round fight where Max reminded us how great he could still be. I mean, we had John Anik, and I'm sure you caught this on Room Service Diaries, telling, and that might have been the best RSD we ever did, by the way, along with Paul Craig and Arnold Allen. I mean, we're on a run right now.

Thank you to the fans for watching it. But I asked John Anik, you know, like, what is the fight that you have, like, the fondest attachment to that either sitting in the announce chair, the energy in the building was so crazy leading into the main event, or what, you know, what was that thing? Like, what was your Adesanya versus Gastelum like your boy BC has? And he goes Max Holloway against Calvin Cater.

I know it's somewhat of a surprising pick in that spot, but from him, it was just watching brilliance at such a high level. That was the vintage Max that I'm talking about. He reconnected with that and he almost had to in this fight why because arnold allen is championship material even with this defeat arnold allen was elevated some things you can critique yes but arnold allen made it so max had to be that great but we can't lie we had legitimate doubts about the damage accrued, whether Max had lost a step physically in terms of timing and reaction and quickness and speed and all that. Would he have to be in brawls to be able to win it? He beat Jair Rodriguez in a damn brawl.

His ability, though, to retool, rely on what he said afterwards, the old Floyd Midweather slogan of hit and not get hit. His ability to rely on footwork, switch stances, high volume output, and almost protect himself. Now, did he get hit with some big shots? Absolutely. Arnold Allen only throws calculated big shots. But Max's ability to regroup, reinvent, which really, if we're being fair, has been a recurring trend. It not only steered us away from the idea of this great legend at 31 might be kind of over it, meaning not, you don't have to retire tomorrow, but we may have already seen your prime come and

go, which happens to guys early. Sometimes Hennon Burrow, Johnny Hendricks, it just sort of hit that ceiling. They can still be a fighter. Matt Brown, right? Jim Miller, they can still be fighters and still be competitive for a long time. But can you keep your elite run sustained, right? It's sometimes we make that comparison in like rock bands.

It's like you can put together a three, four run of, two or three, four really good albums. Well, you may linger as a band for the next 30 years, but you're not putting out anything new anything good max reaffirmed that he's one of the greatest fighters in the history of this sport to the level that i was tweeting with my guy phil mckagan love me some coach love me some coach uh you know nfl coach university of maine football standout star maybe a future broadcaster in the making to my guy, Phil. But we were talking about Max reminded me of like 1996 to 1998.

Michael Jordan right here, which was different circumstances. Jordan coming back from that long gap, you know, a year and a half in his career when he went to play baseball and retired and then came back and got knocked out of the 95 playoffs by the Magic. And Nick Anderson, when he wasn't at full speed what did he do he came back retooled in his mid-30s and reminded us how great and he can still be by getting back to the elite level by changing his game too let's not forget before Jordan left in 93 he really started to work on that mid-range post game and that fade away to really add sustainable wrinkles that will help him fight the aging curve. That's what we saw Max Holloway do here, relying on that footwork speed and that mind. Max Holloway is a fighting genius.

And I know you might be saying, well, BC, I'm waiting for the punchline of you talking about your scoring. And I'll get to that in a second. By the way, fights can be, you can see something and the score can be a little bit different. What do we see with our eyes? An awesome Max Holloway performance, one of the best of his career. I mean, it wasn't the same old Max. This was a Max who's maxing out, pun on words intended, his greatness. We're watching somebody who, yeah, there's flash to it,

and that was part of this win. I mean, there was some spinny shit in there. I mean, he's flash to it. And that was part of this win. I mean, he had, you know, there was some spinny shit in there. I mean, you know, he's constantly switching stances and never allowing Arnold Allen to get set. So it's not like there's not extra wrinkles and flash. That was a big part of the narrative in the storyline of this being somewhat of like a new Max. But what Max does in theory, his foundation of how he wins fights is somewhat simple. Not basic, not easy, but basic. Max controls distance, works behind that jab, you know, punches, boxes.

Obviously, you saw the different wrinkles of switching stances and doing new things, but the bread and butter is still what it is with Max. If he's able to control distance and not allow you to get in and hurt him, like that Yair fight where I thought he took way too much clean shots in the first two rounds almost to the level where you I was wondering if he was going to get stopped and then of course when that leads into the beating he took in the third Volkanovski fight we had these legitimate concerns but what Max did was take his foundation and what you're seeing now at this point in his career at 31 he may be an older 31 than most guys because of how early he started, how many UFC fights he has had, and how many fun, memorable wars he's been in.

But he's maxing out his craft, again, pun intended, right in front of our eyes. It's the mindset. It's the angles. It's the footwork. It's just he is a step ahead and was a step ahead of a great young fighter maybe not fully young in age as arnold allen's only a couple years behind max in terms of age but in terms of experience and potential like arnold allen's coming together right now and even though you know you get daniel white in the post fight post fight press conference saying you know i'm not a

corner man or coach or anything but man, Arnold Allen should have maybe started earlier, should have maybe started what the success he had in round five earlier. And it's easy to say from a distance, right? It's like you came up short on the scorecard. So maybe the fix would have been to be more aggressive. And that's in theory. Sure. There's nothing wrong in theory with what Dana's saying, but Max never let him get comfortable.

Max never let him as creative as Arnold Allen is with, with the great for us as a hobby in his corner. Max is never there long enough to accept more than one shot at a time. Maybe outside of that second round where I think Allen really came out with purpose to try to put together some, some big time strikes and try to, you know, make his early statement in the fight after I thought Max controlled the

first round, but outside of those flurries in the first half of the second round, I mean, you're seeing Arnold Allen, if he's lucky to land one big shot at a time, Max's movement was dynamic. And the switch from his team, not just the, let's spar less at this point in our career, maybe not even spar at all, as you're seeing is the narrative here, to extend, not take unnecessary damage. That's all smart, whether you're talking about tackle football or fighting right why do we need gym wars when you're at this level that's true well max's commitment in this fight to movement and defense it was brilliant i mean it was absolutely brilliant he is still who we thought he was do we have questions that he was somebody

different yes but this re-established it in monster way, in a great fun fight against a great fighter where Max needed to be greater. And he was to get it done. I was in awe. I wasn't at all like John Anik watching the cater fight where it was just, you know, I mean, it was like, you know, it was like MJ. It was like Picasso. I mean, it was wild, right? It's like, it's like Hendrix soloing on stage. This was a little bit different than that, but it still had some of that virtuoso element of one of the greatest fighters in the history of the sport that it's weird for me to say this, like, because I've, Max knows, Max knows that I've been behind on him throughout his career.

And I have openly, you know, it took me a while to really, sometimes this happens when certain fighters, we don't get it right away or we go, you know, I still have questions. I want to see him against this type or against this fighter or whatever. Max had to win me over along the way a few times. And I, and I'm, you know, I'll probably admit I was behind on some of that at certain points. You know, I thought he was going to lose to Pettis. I thought he was going to lose to Aldo.

I even picked Aldo in the rematch as did the betting odds. And yet here was Max doing what he does, maybe because he doesn't have dynamic knockout power or isn't a, you know, full-time submission threat where sometimes you can, with your eyes, discount his ceiling or his UBL, as Luke Thomas would weirdly say, the upper bound limits of what he can do. But what I missed along the way was, was the mind and the genius of what this guy is. And he's still that right now. Do we have something to talk about?

Certainly in a couple of minutes about what's next or what could be next. And you know, that elephant in the room that is Volkanovski still the champion and you've lost three times to him. It's a difficult and interesting conversation, right? Max reestablished his pound for pound value. And it's weird for me.

I started this circular talk by basically saying, it's weird for me to talk about like, Max already being a living legend and all time great, yet still kind of underrated to some degree. Meaning we don't talk about him enough as being closer knocking on the door to that upper room. And this may mean bullshit to you. It may mean nothing.

And in some ways it is podcasters in their basement, like me finding ways to fill time and get creative, but I put value in not only pound for pound, but how we look at it all time in this idea that, yeah, there's a hall of fame or there's a group of great fighters, but there has to be some separation to show you who the truly great ones are. And I think we've, as an MMA society of historians, media, and educated fans have come to a conclusion that, you know, it's John Jones, Anderson Silva, George St. Pierre, Demetrius Johnson, Fedor, that's really in that firm group.

And you've got greats like DC and Jose Aldo and, and others that are, that are really knocking on that door, along with obviously Volkanovski, Adesanya, the current guys of the moment, Usman as well, that are right there. Max Holloway also right there knocking on that upper room. And that's not a huge revelation. You ask anybody, they say, God, Max Holloway's one of the greatest fighters of all time. And he is.

But it's not just that Max is a badass. God, he is. Or that Max is so likable and lovable. I mean is i mean he's a fan favorite to everyone fans media the promotion everybody across the board but his ability to reinvent himself on the regular not just from defeat but from physical questions facing him that's what what true legends are. That's Muhammad Ali shit. And I'm not necessarily doing the whole, you know, like the same thing with the Jordan wrist. I'm not saying Holloway's the Jordan of MMA or the Ali of MMA. No, no, none of that. But, but there's some crossover similarities there and what made those guys great and what makes

Max Holloway great. And let's not forget about the big reinventions or comebacks that he's had right i mean it's it's that that whole fox studio michael bisping situation ahead of ufc 223 when he was going to take on normalka medoff last minute for the lightweight title you know that that could have been one of those bad turning points again where you're like okay for for a season there max was a great fighter i'm not saying he would have retired there, but those same questions then were the same questions we had coming into this fight. Well, can he ever still be that same guy?

It's hard to maintain that for so many numbers of years without defeat, without injuries, without doubt, without all those things. I love how humanly Max has faced those things and still been able to turn around. I loved his pre-fight interview that they ran as, as before he walked to the cage where he's like this career,

I knew this career was going to be hard. It was going to be a grind. There were going to be, you know, bad moments or turning points of questioning. And I think Max to some degree did have some of the same questions we all did. Only he turned that into fuel him and his very underrated team in terms of

how the game plan, he turned that into fuel. Like I liked seeing Max go to the media table afterwards and, you know, almost do the Roy Jones. You almost forgot. I liked that. The reinventions from how he bounced back from that,

that weird health thing that was never explained and then come out and look great against Frankie. I'd get her to defend the title or how we came back from the, it took a lot of damage in that poor EA loss, come out and look great against Frankie. I'd get her to defend the title or how we came back from the, it took a lot of damage in that poor EA loss, which was the first loss in a long stretch that finally broke that, that great winning streak that eventually led him to the title and the two knockouts against knockout wins against Aldo to the bounce backs from the losses to Volkanovski and no worse than this third one.

And I, I go back to the conversation I had with the with phil mckagan mk friend great coach because it's tough here it's it's what was that point i was going to reference right there it's tough for me to remember all the great points i want to make there sorry coach phil um the the ability to sustain and come back from that, that's what separates the true all-time greats. That's exactly what it does. And we all had doubt.

I wonder if he had some doubt. He turned it into fuel. And look what he turned it around as. I think there's a larger conversation of where Max is going in the greater picture. Because, oh, the reference to Phil is Phil texted me what a lot of us are thinking, which is basically like, if Max looked that bad against Volk in the third fight, could have been an injury, a bad camp,

just can't get over the hump against one guy. It could be a lot of things. It also could be that Volkanovsky is just so much better than everybody right now at 145. That may be the case. Because for Max to lose that way and then come back against a riser like Arnold Allen and put forth this performance, you know, it's,

it's, it's a fresh new season for him. I don't know what, what may, what he may have been going through heading into that third Volk fight, but I think we can all agree. The, the,

the headline is Volk is that great. So he was able to do that bust up Matt, Max bloody him, you know, even though Max's chain is still legendary and he's still never been down, which is insane considering the guys he's been in against. But for Max to be able to, it just didn't seem like that was really Max, right? And obviously we're all hoping this wasn't the idea of at 31, is he really, is it really over at the elite level, you know,

or just take old guy fun fights now or no, this does show like Phil thought, like a lot of us thought that Volkanovski is, I mean, he's a pound for pound King, even with in my, in my top 10 for whatever that means in CBS sports, even with that close loss to Mahachev, but yeah, he is at another level. I think Max will even tell you that right now, but even three losses to Volkanovski, who himself, like I mentioned, is knocking on upper room status, doesn't diminish exactly who Max Holloway is. A true legend. And this performance, it wasn't better than the Cater fight, but it's, I say vintage in the sense that he found a way to get back to being the very best of who could,

who he could be. Could that very best of who max could be at this age ever beat? Well, could I just got, I don't know. I don't know. That may just be his boogeyman in that regard. I mean,

I thought he beat Alex in the second fight, very close, but there's no shame in that because to come back, he's still very much a title contender right now. More on that in a second. let's talk about the scoring here yeah mma scoring's in a weird spot our own evaluation of the true criteria mixed with the idea that look some rounds are just close and they can go either way and if you package a couple either way in one direction your score can be significantly different two judges had a 49 46 for holloway a lot of people online say that could

have been five nothing holloway it maybe it could have been in some regard but it also could have been three two holloway the score i settled on in the end but what about three-2 Allen? Is that crazy? Does it warrant the deluge of Twitter responses I got telling me to get a new job and that, you know, go back to boxing, you never wore shit to begin with? You know, all that great stuff you get when you share your real dissenting opinion. I wasn't scoring that fight the first time watching it live on an aggressive level as if I was working. I was scoring it somewhat passively. It's a rare time I was able to watch a fight truly as a fan sort of scoring in my head I don't think the idea of three to two Allen is impossible in a fight this close that was that good I know Ariel scored it that way I kind of scored it that way live what change did I make to flip it 48 47 for Holloway I'll tell Round one, close but clear Holloway win. His establishment of

distance control is obviously just next level. Allen got off to a little bit of a slow start, but again, the theme here on if you're saying, well, Allen should have pushed more. How do you push more against a guy who's switching stances, spinning around, doing all kinds of crazy things, but staying in the fluid rhythm and still constantly touching you with such a variety of shots, including, including the consistent establishment of that body kick from Holloway, which you could tell slowed Allen down a bit, you know, and obviously the accumulation of those clean shots, you can see the blood. It's starting on Allen's nose there, but the second round, um, Oh, first of all, how did the judges just have it?

I mentioned the scores, all three judges gave Allen the fifth round, which we'll talk about in a second. One of the three judges gave Allen the second round. I think I don't know. I thought he made an excellent adjustment in which he the first round. He I don't want to say he took it off because he didn't. He was chasing Max, but he's trying to figure out the timing, the speed, all that stuff. Round two, I thought he came out with Pep in his step saying, OK, I know what I'm in here against. Now let me do what I do. And when he was able to sit down on his striking attempts, look, everything he throws is powerful. I love to describe Arlen as a technical slugger. And this is why this played into, by the way, why this fight was so great, because he's not reckless. Now, when you're constantly coming forward as he is, are you going to be open against great fighters and you, and you have to be willing to absorb a certain level of punishment to get

your shots off. That's all, that's all goes without saying to the style that Arnold Allen executes. But even within that style, he has very responsible defense. I mean, it took an all-time great in Max Holloway and an all-time great performance to kind of piece him up and rely on his incredible timing and how he sets it up with the footwork. But Arnold Allen sat down on his shots and made creative technical attempts with footwork and combinations at getting inside. And there was that sequence, you know, in the second minute of the second round where, you know, he rocked Max and he got off three, even four really clean shots. And I thought the rest of that round, Allen did enough with the pressure and landing single left hands here and there to win the round. I don't think, you know, one of the three judges saw it that way. I watched it a second time.

I still think Arnold Allen won that second round. Third round, Max's best fight, round of the fight. And it was, it was it was basically virtuoso like i mean he was just doing exactly what he wanted in the flow uh you know it's like lebron coming down crossing people up hitting the three in your eye i mean it was it was incredible the swing ish potential if you want to believe at all that there's a case for arnold allen either being closer or maybe more than that in this fight are the fourth and fifth rounds in real time from the fourth and fifth rounds.

In real time from the eighth row of Delta, yes, I thought Arnold Allen had done enough in a close round. You have to realize that the fourth round, they both kind of took a step off in their activity. Second watch, Max did more to offset the couple of clean shots that Allen landed. That's where I spin my score. 48-47 for Holloway on the second watch. Fourth round his. Close round, the least aggressive round for the two of them. Close-ish, but Max did enough. In real time, I thought you could make a case. The fifth round is interesting. All three judges gave it 10-9 for Allen, despite him getting dropped. But we have to talk about things regarding someone getting dropped.

In boxing, it's written into the scorecard in the 10-9 must system, essentially in the scoring rules that, you know, you drop a guy, it's a 10-9 round for you, unless he had, unless your opponent who got dropped had controlled the totality of that round, maybe it would instead be a 10-9 round in your favor, you know, that one point. But the whole point is every knockdown you score is essentially a point against your opponent. You see that when guys get dropped twice and it's a 10-7 round or the rare times you get dropped three times and the fight isn't called off and it's a 10-6 round. In MMA, it's not as automatic that a knockdown is the, you know, it could be a tiebreaker for sure. Could it be, you know, the thing that leans you in one direction when it's kind of close?

Yes. But it's not automatic, especially since in boxing, if a guy goes down, we stop the fight in an issue, you know, an issue account where in MMA, we're just flowing. And in this case, look, the final 10 seconds, they almost did one of those crazy kind of final 10 seconds that we saw in Holloway's great win over Ricardo Lamas at UFC 199 that I had the benefit and privilege of sitting that close to. And what we saw was Arnold Allen with one second to go, squaring up, making almost a leaping hook attempt, getting clipped, goes down, but pops right back up at the bell. Is that enough to offset everything Allen had done when you consider before round five, you know, Firas Ahab, he goes, okay, World War III mode, go after him. And to Allen's credit, like, look, Allen is a warrior, Arnold Allen.

And I've been a little bit behind on him. Maybe sometimes his inactivity. And obviously the Dan Hooker win opened a lot of our eyes into who he really was. And like Holloway's initial run to the featherweight title, Allen just had a long winning streak in which, you know, he set himself on RSD with us. He's not a guy that's going to call people out and try to use, you know, the media or the trash talking to get an opportunity. He's going to do it the old merit way and and he is a great fighter and he is built for biting down and going after it so yes again the whole Dana thing could you argue he should have done that a little bit earlier to some degree yes but I'm also obviously

arguing that Max made that very difficult I don't think Arnold Allen realized until the end of the fourth round that essentially he needed to transition into that mode in his eyes he was pretty damn close in round four remember first watch i thought he had actually may have edged it where i could see in his eyes you know was i close enough to make that two two well round five to his credit he knew okay it's go time he won the fifth round i mean for the first four and a half minutes arnold allen you know dominated would be a would be a strong word because max was still in there competitive, but he clearly controlled and won that round. The question you have to ask yourself is, does Max's flash knockdown in the final second

just offset that automatically? In boxing, you'd have an argument here. A lot of people, if this was a boxing round in that scenario, would just automatically go, oh, 10-9 Holloway. He dropped him, right? Others, though, would look a little bit deeper and say, well, didn't Alan kind of control most of the rest of it. So maybe it would instead, if not a 10, eight round in Max's favor, maybe a 10, nine round

just to give Alan that credit. What do we do though? In MMA? Is it just automatically? I don't think it is automatically in MMA. Again, when a guy gets strapped, you're not stopping the fight and issuing a 10 count. The fight's still going on. Guys get dropped more.

There's more ways to get hit with crazier strikes, with harder strikes, with four ounce gloves, with elbows, with knees, all of that stuff. I don't think Alan in that spot was defiantly hurt. It doesn't mean I'm discounting at all,

but I think the totality of the four plus minutes of controlling that is not crazy to give him that round. All three judges also gave him that round, which I know isn't always the thing you fully lean on. Obviously, when you look at the stats of it, Max largely dominated. He was the rightful winner. Stats, though, you can't forget that, you know, round three was a dominant Max round, which which blew up his stats a lot. But round five's got to be an Arnold Allen round. And if it is, then that's a 48-47 Holloway fight based on how I saw it there. I was wrong on round four, and I'll accept that.

You don't have to come calling for my job or bring the flaming fork there. But if you did, I can take it. It's fine at the end of the day. Arnold Allen's going to learn and grow a lot from this. And you've got to love how humble he is and that's that's why i think a lot so many people are falling for him at this extreme close-up now because he's a warrior even max said afterwards i couldn't trash talk this guy i didn't want to he's so polite he's so nice you know he doesn't he doesn't do things that sometimes the purists hate about this fight sport where you can use your mouth to

talk yourself into situations you know he's just about going out there and getting it done he's got a blue collar work ethic and and demeanor shout out to uh shout out to pacer his dad but at the same time very thoughtful very creative in how he sets up his strikes um he fought a better fighter and lost could he have stepped on the gas more and made it closer and more interesting or maybe one, it may be in hindsight, but he also, again, would have opened himself up to more shots. And even if Max isn't known as a, as a full-time finisher in a striking sense, more of an accumulation guy, think of the two Jose Aldo fights, you know, you're putting yourself in extreme danger early when look,

skill-wise, technique-wise, Allen wasn't that far behind in his first full five-round fight in a pro-max crowd there at Kansas City, all that stuff. I think you have to like a lot of what you saw from Allen. Like, he's going to fight for a world title in this division. There's no question about it. It's just when can he bounce back? How soon can he win a title? I think he has the goods underneath the hood there to win a title. And maybe this is that perfect growing experience that a lot of guys hit when they first step up to this level. Think Stipe Miocic against JDS in the first fight. First five-round fight on that level. Think even Robbie Lawler losing the title fight to Johnny Hendricks but then coming back in the next one.

And, you know, by the way, I thought Robbie kind of, that first fight with Johnny could have gone either way. Let's be fair, but we've seen that time. And again, our Arnold Allen's going to be fine. They're going to make the, the, the, the, the changes to it. You know, what I like his chances more against Volkanovski right now. I mean, Volkanovski is better than everybody. And that's the fact. I mean, that's what it is. He's the best fighter in the game right now and he's closing in on becoming one of the true greatest fighters of all time but so is Max even if historically because he fought three times against Alex and came up empty we do have to hold him just a little bit back um what a fight it was

fun it it reminded me maybe because I got to watch it finally as a fan, which is rare because I'm usually scoring the rounds for CBS Sports HQ, writing a recap, doing a live chat, doing something, right? Which you always have to say as a media member when you're sharing your scores, you have to do it with a grain of salt. I'm not sitting there with my phone off and the internet off, you know, two feet away like the judges are scoring. But I think this was a closer fight than most saw it. And that doesn't take away from it also being an absolutely brilliant, virtuoso performance from Max Holloway and just another one on his long list and yet another reinvention. All right, let's talk about where they go from here. A lot of solo talking here.

I got to regroup here, all right? I got the AG1. I got to regroup here, all right? I got the AG1. I got the water. I got the Chuck Mendenhall hat that you can get on the Myth.com, M-I-T-H right now, all right? You can also get our merch, by the way, at MorningCombat.store.

I don't know if you care about that, but that's also out there. All right, we got a Volkanovski issue for Max. Yes, we do. He's not going to get a fourth fight against the champion at featherweight when he's lost three times, unless he goes on, you know, a hellacious run of just beating everybody else. And there's no one else from for Volk to face. And they're both, you know,

still in this division and still in the top five pound for pound together. And you go, Hey, it's rare. It's weird, but let's do it. No, it's not going to happen because I think other things are going to happen before then. That will change, potentially, the future of Max's thing. What do we know about Max right now, as I established? He's one of the 10 best in the world right now. I mean, this is a pound-for-pound redeeming performance. He mentioned an interesting stay busy. And why would he need to stay busy?

First of all, because Yair Rodriguez and Alexander Volkanovski are going to fight to unify the title. And obviously, it goes without saying, if Yair Rodriguez wins that, which is in play, even with how great Volk is, you just never can discount how dangerous this version of Yair is. With the spinny shit, with the speed, with the aggressiveness. I mean, he is, this is primeair rodriguez right now so he could win that if he wins that max gets directly inserted right back into the situation he had just beaten that guy in a great fight that sells itself max is back max said the idea of korean zombie calling him out and wanting a fight and i love max's way of saying sharing why he wants it so much you know they came up together in that old era.

And, you know, like we've been knowing Max on the UFC since like 19 years old or 18 or whatever. I mean, it's been forever. He said he'd even do it in Australia. He'd love to. Do you hate that fight? No. Do you love it? No. Do you love it? No. But you can get behind the idea of,

if this is waiting around for a big opportunity, could you do worse than that? Is that an entertaining, attractive fight? Yeah. I mean, to some level, yeah. It's also one that should win at this point against this version of TKZ. So if it has to come to that, I don't hate it. But here's the question you're asking me, BC.

Why would it come to that? If Volkanovski beats yayer i think max has to leave the division and i think the only thing he would want to be waiting for is what happens in conor mcgregor michael chandler this potentially this fall because look max lost to connor when they were like you know in high school still basically um a rematch is is even it by the way even if connor loses to chandler which i guess that'd be a welterweight fight you do that fight at lightweight it's it's a pay-per-view block you know it's a monster i mean it's it's a it's it's everything i think that's still worth saving yourself for. But if Volkanovski doesn't lose and decides to stay at featherweight, I think the only way for Max is lightweight.

First, looking at the Conor Money opportunity and that level of a fighter, maybe even like a, hey, Nate Diaz, you want to meet in some, you know, catch weight and do something fun there? Outside of that, though, I think Max proved against Arnold Allen that he's still great enough that even if it would be unlikely that he would go up to lightweight and win the title, especially with somebody like Mahachev atop the division, it's not impossible and it's not, it's not a, you know, it's not a move that would be made just because it's, it's a promotional, you know, big money fight. It's also something that Max would earn and have deserved,

but it's, I think it's obviously with Max's true skillset, 145, where he really belongs. And he knows that, I mean, he was close against Poirier in that one, in that UFC 236 fight, and you got to give him credit for enduring that kind of punishment. But, you know, I don't know that that's not sustainable for Max anymore. Unless it's, unless his elite run is over, in my opinion. So 145 is it. What about Volkanovski? If he beats Jair going, I beat everybody. I mean, I have, I beat everybody and I almost beat Mahachev.

In fact, a lot of people think I should have gotten the nod against him. I think if you're Volkanovski at that point, given the fact that we know he used to weigh 205 pounds or 215 or Jerome Bettis was from Detroit. I mean, these are things we know, right? We know. Yeah, I know. The Super Bowl's in Detroit. I know. I know. It is what it is.

But Volkanovski moving up to lightweight and trying to rematch the champion. That's business. That's history, right? That's like, how do you double down on your growing, amazing legacy instead of knocking on the door of the upper room? How do you kick it open? You go back, make a full time move up to lightweight and rematch him. And, you know, you can't you can't. He might win that. I mean, he might have already won that. Right. I mean, I scored that for Islam and I even can support a 4-1 Islam scorecard there. Again, the MMA score, this is what I just want people to always realize when it comes to scoring

any combat sport fight. Just because the math added up that you thought you can either make a case or that one guy might've won doesn't mean it that visually that guy dominated or that is the only way. Me saying it's possible that you could get to 48 47 allen or even 48 47 holloway doesn't mean that i don't agree that max deserved to have won there so you always have to remember that in a great assault and how you judge these but i think it'd be great for max if volkanovsky did move up. It'd be even better if Yair won the title and then he could fight him.

But I think Max long-term, there's potentially another title run in their form if Volkanovski leaves. And if Volkanovski stays and if Max doesn't want to go to 55, it would take a while, as we said. But I think, you know, even if Volkanovski stays, Max has got to go to 55, whether that's big money fights against famous brawlers or that's going right directly in the title. He's got a lot ahead of him and it's great to see because he's one of the greatest people in this sports history. His commitment to his craft, unmatched, right? Unmatched. That's why you make those sort of snide Jordan or Ali comparisons to some degree of sort of the reinventive process. That's what the all-time greats do. Max Holloway, the all-time freaking greats. I mean, good Lord. And Arnold Allen, you'll be back. You're gonna

have to go through a hammer to get there, but you'll be back. And we want to see you, by the way, against all of those remaining hammers still in the title picture. A big part of that was Max's love for the game. That's what allows him to reinvent and use the motivation of, you know, the media doubting him and all that. But you know who loves this game on an equally scary level? And it just, it just makes me smile. How about Edson Barbosa? How about that old dangerous, just Brazilian battering ram?

Billy Q, co-main event. Yeah, this was a fight where you had those questions because we saw Barbosa's on a decline. We saw what happens when you wrestle him. And Billy Q tried. And you can wrestle and control him at this point. And Barbosa's been through wars. But you talk about reinvention not at the level

of max but for what Barbosa was able to do to get in the sickest shape of his entire career a division down from his best at an age in his late 30s where we're like okay you got a couple more fun you know fights left you'll be a knockout threat go out there. Barbosa has given everything he has to this game to stay relevant and stay in this position. And it ended up paying off in this one. And it was great to see. His body is a wonderland. I mean, it's scary ripped. And yes, he's still in that mode of like, well, fuck around.

You'll find out. You will find out against Barbosa. I mean, he's that dude, right? And Billy Q, unfortunately for him, squared up, stayed in range, was trying to be aggressive, mixed with some smart ideas. I love Billy Q. I mean, he's my guy, right? He's an MK guy. I love him. But, you know, he walked into range. And if you do that against Barbosa, you'll get handled. And that knee was brilliant. But that speech Barbosa gave afterwards, that love he showed to the Kansas city crowd, which I didn't love Kansas city booing the Gutierrez Pedro Munoz fight, but they, they showed out when it was necessary, you know,

supporting Max and just being there for the big moments when Barbosa just welcomed in the love from that Casey crowd. I mean, it just shows you how much he loves this game. And you have to love it to be around at that age and be at this level and all that is default. But he truly loves this game. Why do I always make that Jerry Rice comparison? Like there are greats who don't want you to ever see them

when they're not great anymore. That's why it's rare when somebody walks away when they're in like their mid or early 30s and goes, you know what? You know, the Rocky Marciano thing of like 49 and 0. And I just had a close fight, but I knocked out Walcott. And you know what? I'm going to walk away. You're never going to see me bad. Come back, you know, get KO'd.

Come back when I shouldn't come back. You know, and the people that are able to preserve that in boxing like Joe Calzaghe, you know get ko'd come back when i shouldn't come back you know and the people that are able to preserve that in boxing like a joe calzaghi you know or or you know even an mma habib although there were different circumstances that or that sort of early exit before it gets too late we tend to really put a you know a hero bubble around that and be like man that's the right way to do it and to some degree it is you know it's that old adage in boxing but what if Roy Jones had retired after he moved up to heavyweight and beat uh John Ruiz yeah he would have been in contention for the pound for pound greatest fighter of all time yeah that's what would have happened but you know at

that age in his early 30s is he going to do that with all the money left on the table no no he's not right he's not going to do that um in this the flip on the table? No, no, he's not right. He's not going to do that. Um, in this, the flip side of that is the Jerry Rice thing. When people hang on too long, Jerry Rice is the greatest, you know, touchdown score and wide receiver of all time. But there's actually an argument that he's the greatest NFL player of all time. Like the same thing with Lawrence Taylor, even though that, that argument typically surrounds quarterbacks and running backs, Jim Brown, Walter Payton, Tom Brady, Joe Montana. Those are the kind of guys that are in that discussion normally. Well, Jerry Rice is also in that discussion. Yet Jerry Rice at like 43 was still trying to hang on with the Denver Broncos as like a third string receiver.

And they finally caught him in the preseason and were like, dude, go home. And, you know, I remember at the time, maybe because Jerry Rice had that really comical haircut where he had cornrows while going bald. So they didn't start here. They started like up here and it looked really bad and it was easy to clown the old guy. But I remember thinking, like, shouldn't it be better than this? You know what I mean? Like, like, don't slum dude you're royalty but i also think to some degree as long as somebody's not you know putting themselves in physical and mental danger long term you have to have respect for the competitor jerry rice or people like him were so great that they were able to get all these accolades and championships and you know mvp

consideration and greatest of all time consideration but the fuel for that was always the damn love of the game. When Barbosa just, well, you know, opens up to the crowd and is like, you know, I was in the best shape of my career and I'm even going to come back even better shape next time. You love to see it. I love how much Edson Jr. Barbosa loves this game still. I love how much Edson Jr. Barbosa loves this game still. I love that. And that love of the

game can become a negative when somebody hangs on too late and takes too much damage. But we're not there with Barbosa and he's still very viable as we saw with this knockout of Billy Q. And you know, it's a sort of a ceiling point right now for Billy Q. There are some things he's certainly got to work on and he knows that. The mix between the aggressiveness while trying to remain technical and he needed to take that fight to the ground to have big success. Cause you don't want to be standing against Barbosa for too long. And, you know, especially when, when you squared up right there and he paid the price,

he's going to grow up bouts and learn from that. But Barbosa is that rare veteran who's, you know, taking big beatings, taking losses, taking a lot of things, but it's like, man, you're not kicking me. Not only are you not kicking me out of here because I'm going to stay relevant, but I'm going to find a way still to be the very best I can be like no stones unturned. I think Gilbert Burns did that to a certain degree. And that's a big part of his sort of mid thirties Renaissance right now. You don't Glover to share it to some degree, right. You know, in, in, in Glover's case, simplifying his game and relying more on the bread and butter of the takedowns and the grappling and all that.

But Barbosa has the kind of style that was never fully going to age well. Yes, the power's there, but, you know, the setup to get that power off, you need to be dynamically fast and quick. And he's basically going, I'm not going to let the age stop that I'm going to work even harder. I got a lot of respect for that. You know what I mean? I got a lot of respect for that. It was great to see that really, really made me smile. Also shout out Brandon Royville, who even Dana White said afterwards, we messed up. That guy should have been on the main card.

The old raw dog faced a tough out in Mateus Nikolai, and this was on the prelims, but it mattered in the overall flyweight title picture. And he caught him with a great knee, you know, nasty like Barbosa's was there against the old Billy Q there. But how about three straight wins for the Raw Dog? And we'd seen him lose consecutive fights dating back to 2021st against Moreno when he was stopped, and then he got submitted by Pantoja. And by the way, it looks like those two that beat him are going to be fighting next to the title.

And that makes a lot of sense. But Roy Vaughn has had this run where, by the way, he's also submitted Kaikar France and Tim Elliott before that. So he's had this run where I think he's been too in love with pushing the pace and being that guy to the fans. And we've heard him at times in post-fight interviews be like, you know, I should probably be doing things a little differently. But, you know, my nickname's the raw dog this is what i do you know knock up chicks right no just kidding um this is what i do uh what he did here was score a third straight win i think he's starting to put it together and it was a performance of the night it was a beautiful first round ko but i've said it before i'll say it once more uh knew you knew

you would make me feel so good want to do you right right now i'll say it once more. I knew you, knew you would make me feel so good. Want to do you right, right? No, I'll tell you once more that a rival is going to fight for a title in this division and he's coming on. That was a, that was a very, very good win right there. Decent question here before we get off of UFC Kansas city. Cause again, this is a BC live chat hybrid. So I'll be answering some questions later. Thank you for submitting them on social media. I guess in theory you could submit them now through this chat.

If you could swim through the racism and misogyny. Can we get a chat moderator here? But this is from 8 Heavy Limbs. What BMF fight can be made for Holloway in the absence of him laying claim to undisputed gold? Surely he is deserving of a non-championship accolade of that caliber. Basically, what BMF style fights would you make? he is deserving of a non-championship accolade of that caliber basically what bml bmf style fights would you make well the connor money fight is a little different from bmf although you could still bastardize it under that that level just the same um i mentioned the ds look i think

you know when nate diaz who's gonna fight we're gonna box jake paul in august holy crap that came out of nowhere when i was on vacation you know I don't think he's done getting back in. And I think the UFC purposely kind of, I mean, I'd love to believe in the, I'd love to believe in the conspiracy theory that UFC was like, Hey, Hamza, just miss way by a lot. And then we'll switch the fight and Nate can go out happy. And then we'll get Nate back. Cause we want him to fight Connor a third time or whatever. I mean, I don't really believe that at the end of the day, but I'm like, I like trying

it. I like trying that out. I like putting that hat on and seeing how it fits. But the whole idea is there could have... Yeah, Nate Diaz is one right there. Now, I wouldn't want to see Max fight above lightweight, right? Maybe unless it was Conor, if that had to be

that way. But no, he's got to fight somebody at lightweight. There's all those aging lightweights that make great fights, right? Across the board. Gaethje, Poirier. I know Max has lost twice to Poirier, but the second one obviously was an all-timer in a lot of ways. Yeah, that's where I think if Max, if Volkanovski doesn't leave the division, and if there is an instant opening for the title there,

I think these are the fights you're going to make with Max. But you'd like to see him at lightweight and i think his style if he relies more on the style he employed against alan here of hit and not get hit that style could sustain itself well against aging brawlers if they wanted to bring back the bmf which by the way i think they should it was such a leap to ever do that the first time so outside of the grounds of Dana White you know I know I know now that WWE is a part of the larger endeavor uh portfolio now but that's such like a WWE move and they did it and they did it for the right fight and the right person at the right time but I wouldn't I wouldn't hate a return to that you've already done it the belt's already been

printed just do it use it make it an attraction yeah max could fit in in there but the thing is he could be now somebody who doesn't who shouldn't rely on on the chin part of it and rely and you know more against these aging brawlers on the movement and the length and his ability to control distance um telvin keep up but we love telvin in these parts hawaii's own uh with bellator coming to hawaii any chance we get the mk show the lava shack. I don't know. It was BJ fighting this weekend. I've never been to Hawaii and it's such a bucket list. It's a, you know,

opportunity one day for me to see the true beauty there. I won't be this time, but if MK was coming on, we'd be coming on at the lava shack live show, bring your friends, you know, free ice to don't tell dog the bounty under the, right.

You know, we shouldn't be joking about that either. All right. This is BC's live chat. so there's barely any rules. To be fair with you, hold on. I got an important text message. Give me, like, one second. Think about whether or not this hat ages me or makes me look more mature.

Talk amongst yourselves for a second here. One second, okay? Yeah, we'll be right back. This is a commercial, right? Yeah. All right, all is well there let's get back to the show so that was ufc kansas city uh i know there was a a bad a bad scorecard in that first fight with it with the women i didn't watch it so i can't comment on that but that's the situation but the crowd you know should they have been booing Munoz versus Gutierrez?

No. I mean, it was as the announcer said, it was a high paced technical fight. And good Lord, if you guys can't see that at that point in the night and you just want like, you know, I mean, you got you got what you asked for in the Tanner Bosa-Kutaylaba fight. Right. I mean, you got it. That's what you asked for. The Hulk came out. Right. That's fine. But, but you know come on uh I want to shout out MK listener though Anthony Weller he's a guitarist in a very good band called Head Change uh he was in in attendance there in case he had a great time with members of the band so shout out right there let's keep the combat sports uh flowing here as we can continue on the BC post-vacation MK episode hybrid here let Let's talk heavyweight boxing for a second.

I didn't think we'd be having this chat because on paper, this fight that went down in the UK last Saturday, ESPN top rank there, Joe Joyce, the juggernaut, right? Was taken on much maligned at times. Six foot six Chinese Southpaw heavyweight, Big Bang Zhang over there. aligned at times six foot six Chinese Southpaw heavyweight big bang Zhang Xielei big bang Zhang over there it's technically for the interim WBO or whatever strap the whole idea is that the winner here is going to be you know next in line for a big opportunity big title shot or maybe a

comebacking Anthony Joshua all that this fight was. A minus 1100 betting favorite in Joe Joyce. But on paper, these are two heavyweights who have been... Now look, much of the heavyweight division is frustrating regularly. There's two all-time great heavyweights right now atop, right? Fury and Usyk. Really, all-time great. And then and then there's like you know that second tier of really fun guys who had runs in big moments wilder anthony joshua you know louis sorties had a minute delian white but you know even with this renaissance era heavyweight is always very shallow and narrow or guys can be inconsistent or can be good for a bit, you know, all that stuff. Joe Joyce, the juggernaut who was an aging prospect when we first saw him, I thought this guy's never going to get there.

He's older. He's slow as shit. But he put it together to score two big wins, which turned us around. And the most recent one when he stopped former champion Joseph Parker was like, oh, God, i was wrong about this obviously the first one was the showdown against daniel dubois when they were both unbeaten it was a big britain let's see who the next great british heavyweight is and we remember what happened dubois like i broke i mean his face was like and his face was one leg kick from gaiji

away from being in peril all right and joe joy stopped him late and won that fight and that was okay but when he knocked out Joe, Joe Parker was like, dude, if this guy decides to like step up the pressure as he did there, like, man, he might be a problem.

And suddenly you had fury talking about wanting to fight him yet. AJ. I mean, suddenly we're talking about Joe Joyce being a thing, even though he's like 36. And at times slow as shit, like molasses slow. He got the shit kicked out of him against plus 600 underdog Jean-Joliet.

And lost, took his first loss, but lost a ton of momentum considering had he won that, he's probably fighting Joshua next or maybe even Fury because they can't make the Usyk fight right now. Although there's talk about some weird, there's talk and it's always internet talk but there's talk that there's a lot of money in Saudi Arabia area which we know is true and the idea of some like final four double header heavyweight thing going on that would eventually lead to like Usyk and Fury or Joshua or whoever comes through there a while there it's an interesting idea you know see me see me at the Brooklyn Bridge if it ever happens but here's the deal joe joyce was about to join that group instead he got stopped in five rounds by bang bang zhang um what should we say about jean-julie i've been following this

forever man remember when he came from china dino duva the promoter, became his project. Jean Gillet only had one defeat and a draw coming in here. And he's like 38 or 39 years old. But heavyweights age late. But the biggest sticker on Jean Gillet that gives you major pause is the guy gasses out all the damn time. He's got power early. Obviously, if you're a 6'6 southpaw, that's hard to work with. He was a silver medalist at the 08 Games in Beijing.

So Zhang Zhelei can do some things. But he usually looks good in the opening rounds and then falls apart even when he wins. Do you remember that draw he had with Jerry Forrest, where he knocked Forrest down three times in the opening three rounds and then fell apart? Now, it turns out he had kidney issues and damage, and it turns out he had extreme dehydration. And then we found out that Bang Bang Zang basically was like, I don't even really drink that much water in training camp. Dude, you got to stay hydrated, first of all. But that theme of him gassing late.

Now, he held on for a draw against Forrest there, but that theme followed him. So Zhang's last fight was his first defeat. It came against Filip Urgovic and it allowed Urgovic to become the number one contender in the IBF. He is also in line for a big title opportunity, but Urgovic got dropped in the first round by Zhang. And you can argue that Zhelei should have won that. His team argued it vehemently. It goes to the scorecards and it's a close decision, but Ergovich gets the nod. But even though they have a case for arguing it, dude, he gassed out again in that fight.

He never looked really bill. He had been pumped up with this unbeaten record. We'd seen him on like pay-per-view main cards and we'd seen him against cab drivers at times. And he, you he you know he handles them but there's always like did i see something i should be afraid of yeah you did in this fight though i don't know if joe joyce didn't train i want to say you know you always want to say when somebody has a performance that's so disastrous compared to the recent ones i tried to do that with max talking about the third vault fight like did he you he, you know, was it bad training camp? Was it injury? Whatever. I mean, in this case, you can't necessarily say

that because Joe Joyce came in like a career firm weight in the mid two fifties when normally he's in the two seventies, but he came in there with zero head movement and all of his punches were way slower than normal. So did he overtrain? I don't know. But what did Zhang Zhelei do? Exactly what the things that he does that are good, which is the first three rounds, he could light you up with that left cross. And when Joe Joyce was not moving, he just decided I'm going to square up

and not move my head once in the fight. It became target practice. Now, shout out to Zhang and his team. Like, they earned this. A fifth round stoppage. They beat the crap out of Joe Joyce, but there's a lot of questions here about why Joyce was sort of in the bullseye, the whole fight. And, and, you know, you just didn't have that, that same fervor gas tank, that crispness that he had against Parker. Now, maybe it was, he was rocked

in the first round really badly. Maybe that just threw him off and we never got to see it, but the rest of the time it was target practice that led to the stoppage. So look, this is a monster story in China. This is a prospect that, you know, a lot of money and time has been put into that. We didn't think it had ever turned out. Now he's on the verge of maybe turning it out. I mean, he could be fighting Anthony Joshua next it's it's wild, but that was a big win over the weekend. That was a, that was an eye opener. Sometimes that happens in this game. And sometimes we see very elevated odds in boxing to try to sway activity. And in this case, they were very high, but Zhang Zule of China comes through in a monster way.

I did not see it coming. Let's talk about what else we did not see coming. I mean, should we have seen it coming? Morning combat for the second straight year. The Sports Podcast Group, as you may know, had nominated us. Last year, they named us Best Combat Sports Podcast because of you guys. You voted. Then their panel of experts that are executives and some of the you know top corporations and media conglomerates

that you've all heard of they voted us somehow the best sports podcast then we main evented their podcast festival in the uk and you saw what happened it was great well they nominated us again this year for combat sports and we were up against again like i was great to see by the way inside boxing live dan canobio and chris algeria it's a very good podcast and they have me on and i love those guys it was great to see them nominated too but we're up against like renee young of the wwe renee paquette and her podcast ariel obviously some really good boxing overseas podcast the one george grows does you never know you never know what's going to happen here this is a fan vote one we can't control i mean some people will argue that you know maybe the sports podcast group can't control how the mk fans make 50 fake emails

addresses and that's how they vote so much i don't know how it happened but i'm never going to stop being humble and never going to stop pressing pause and doing the ferris bueller and you know looking around once in a while so you don't miss it when these happen because you never know it's just like we're talking about the prime of a fight or a rock band. You never know, dude, what's going to happen. You know what I'm saying? Sometimes you give the best effort, but the results aren't there, or there's factors holding you back.

But you saw it on social media over the weekend, morning combat for the second straight year has been named the best combat sports podcast by the sports podcast group. This now puts us in the running to potentially two years in a row, when best sports podcast, whatever that means. And obviously we're already smitten from being two time defending champions in the world.

MMA awards voting of best combat or best MMA programming, which somehow we're beating UFC TV shows. And so first of all, thank you. Like, like as Luke said, in, in the great MK documentary six, like fucking, thank you. Like, as Luke said in the great MK documentary six, like, fucking thank you. Fucking thank you.

Thank you. I mean, this is you guys, right? This is like, you know, and people, you know, maybe our fans scam the system. Maybe they did. But you know what that shows? Our fans are crazy for this drug, right? You know what I mean?

The BDE, yeah, yeah. They want that injection every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, right? They want something we used to say on the CBS Sports State of Combat podcast. They want that performance-enhancing audio. And they know where they want it injected, right? Well, yeah. Well, you know, fans, if you want blood, got it okay you got it you got it you did it again um thank you second straight year i mean you know i never know what this means i know what

it means though i'm figuring it out what it really means is we have the best fans in all of this game and it's it's not just these boring ass vanilla mma only fans who came from luke and don't want to hear any of bc's dad. And are basically like, Luke, if you're not breaking down every UFC fight from start to finish, I ain't listening. I love those people too. You can tune into, cause you know the journey you're going to hate BC at first and you're going to love them. Then you're going to wonder if he's weirder than I thought he was.

And you're probably going to hate him again. It's the cycle of life. That's fine. But we have this other population in this fan base of people who are like, this is a lifestyle. These are my dudes. And that's the greatest gift that this podcast has given me. on the most from the beginning for whatever role I have in this larger MK picture and the things I can control. I have always wanted to create something that people are like, is it the best breakdowns of combat sports? I don't know. It may not be, but there's just something about this community and this feeling that I just want to keep coming back. You know, that's why I say those donkey mentors, whether you watched them or not not and statistics tell you that you probably didn't based how we crap out about 24 000 on each of those docs but you know the docs aren't just about mma and boxing and neither is mk it's about the growth of

men and it really is it's about the life cycle that we all live through the lens of our combat sports fandom we take it seriously yes the, but we don't take ourselves seriously. And you guys have just feel connected with that. We see it in fan subs on most Wednesdays, right? We see it in dead wrong. We see it. And you know, I, I love this weird club, you know, I mean, you know what, you know what the cool dads did in my gross factory town growing up, they joined a club when they were adults, like the club or the elks club you know like the polish falcons or the the hibernians like all these you know old guy clubs that sponsored all of our like little pal basketball teams you know the reality is these guys just hanging out at a bar drinking calling it a club right i'm sure they

did community service in the i'm sure there's a nice connect like the rotary club you know they they they plant the flowers you You know what I mean? But at the end of the day, they're there because it's a club of real talk like men do. And they got their own bar. And they're going to play cards and, you know, talk about the glory days. That's what the hell MK is. It's disguised as sort of, you know, come for Luke Thomas's insightful breakdowns. And oh, by the way, speaking of Luke Thomas' insightful breakdowns, his dissected on Gervonta Tank Davis

that launched yesterday that you can find right now at youtube.com slash morning combat. That's the top shelf right there. You want to see an inside breakdown of what that fight might look like and all that, see that, okay? Yeah, we give you that too.

But we, you know, we give you, we give you a, we give you, we give you a, we give you the Polish Falcons club too. All right. Or the Lithuanian club, if that's the thing, you know what I mean? So, so come on in inject. I'll, you know, see ya. We'll see ya. Thank you very much. Seriously. Thank you for voting for us. And thank you obviously, as we always do shouting out the big guns at Showtime and CBS sports.

And, you know, we work with Malka through Showtime. We love them. And, you know, I mean, I could name from Brian Daly to Matt Snyder, Courtney Magg, and, you know, Jeff Gertula at CBS Sports. Those other people are from Showtime and Sam Batesh at CBS Sports. I can name so many people. Eric Kay. But today I want to tell you, this guy, Mikey Mormyle on the ones and twos, he bleeds for this thing. He lives for this show.

From an occupational standpoint, this is his lifestyle. And Mikey, this one's for you, buddy. They always say you can't see a great man. There's always a great woman behind a great man. You know what I mean? There's also a great tall guy full of THC and his name is Mikey Morms and we love you, baby. Thank you very much. All right, BC, before we hit your questions is fresh off a, a vacation here. How was it?

It was great. It may have been the best family vacation I ever had. I'm going to be very honest with you in that regard. Where did I go? It was basically a journey from Denver to Salt Lake City over 10 days, visited my sister and her amazing family in Longmont, Colorado. And a couple of you guys that were lucky enough to dial into the Only Pipes channel at cameo.com slash Brian Campbell, were able to get, you know, sort of live looks at the nature around me. This was one of those nature trips that just shoots you right in the old stick. Right. You know what I mean? Thank you, David Sandeen.

Stay for BC all the way and these weird dogs. Right. I mean, we got, I mean, we, I mean, you know, I mean, we got Jay Paquette's all over the place here on the MK and we love them. Okay. I'm, I'm humbled by the mountains. I am humbled by, you know, being in bowl, walking in my sister's driveway in Longmont, Colorado, and seeing the 14ers out there covered in snow. I mean, you know, if you know, you know, this is God's country.

You know what I mean? This was a true artiste at work in doing that. But, you know, I got the full gamut of the family fun. I got to go to Glenwood Springs in the middle of the Rockies and do the whole hot springs jam and do the mountain coaster and all that. And I tried to keep you guys along the journey on my Instagram as much as I could, meaning, you know, my wife and kids are like, don't put me on there. All right. We don't want your weird followers making weird comments at us. And you know, that's the right, you know, that's probably a good choice family. Thank you. But,

you know, we had a great time. We then, I got, I love driving. You know, I they, you know, that's probably a good choice family. Thank you. But, you know, we had a great time. We then, I got it. I love driving. You know, I mean, you know, my dad drove to Florida straight through with like, you know, without a hotel room from Connecticut to Florida, 21 hours, like many times in my youth. I did that drive once too, by the way. Yo, I almost lost it in Jersey. It's not, it's not recommended, but I, you know, my dream is still to drive across this great nation. You know, do that, do that whole, you know, my dream is still to drive across this great nation, you know, do that, do that whole, you know, romantic idea of if it was like 1967 and we all hopped in the back of a broken down convertible and put flowers in our hair and drove to San Francisco. Like, I still have. And, you know, the changes in terrain and just getting a, you know, pulling off at just ridiculous side towns, right. Because, you know, I take for granted on this congested East coast where you can't go

five miles without entering into a new town center. You know, when you're out there in the West and, you know, that's like 120 miles between bathrooms. Right. So you can end up like I did at a gas station in parachute, Colorado, shout out, shot that Chinese place. They're looking gnarly. No, they, they, they got, uh, they got, they got like three, there's like five buildings in that town. And three of them are weed dispensaries by the way. But you know, I went to the gas station there and I was like, I got to get something local and weird for my family. I don't know if this is a thing throughout the Southwest. There was a whole stand of candy that were written in Spanish. I assume they're Mexican candy. Everyone had the same theme. They were like a regular piece of candy that I'm used to on an American level, but dipped in some form of

ridiculous looking powder. And I'm like, is that spices? What is that? So I ended up settling on these things that looked like thin fruit roll-ups. It was a mango flavored and a watermelon flavor. You know, dad comes back from getting gas, getting the car. Hey kids, I got something new here. I'm like, kids, this is a little weird. It's all written in Spanish. You know, it must be like a local thing. The best thing I can say, I took one bite and almost threw up, then took another one. And then was like, wait, what's really in this? Took a third, then finally threw them all away. It's basically a fruit roll up that's been dipped into chili powder, an extreme amount of salt and some other weird seasonings. And maybe that's how people get down over there.

I mean, you know, I once bought a Bud Light Clamato thinking people seem to like I'm not a Bloody Mary guy. Right. Can I get a steak sandwich and a Bloody Mary and a steak sandwich, right? That's a great fledge joke. But the idea of putting tomato juice in your beer, that's disgusting. I took one drink and wanted to put a

coat hanger down my throat and pull up everything I just ate. Don't try that at home, though. But maybe people eat candy that's been dipped into. Chili powder, but that's the grossest shit I ever saw. But the whole point is that's America. I mean, ain't that America right for you and me? You know, home of the free baby. Right. There were no little pink houses in Parachute, Colorado. But, you know, driving through the rockies in utah

you know on the way into provo and you know there's 8 000 foot mountains covered in snow i mean it was an experience the eisenhower tunnel in colorado shout out to greg d mk listener truck driver who was delivering all that cores not bud light all that cores through there um there's some gnarly driving up there i loved it i loved I loved it. The highlight of the trip, of course, was Greater Moab. Moab's got the weirdest people ever. But I'd never been in the state of Utah before, not even for a second. And my introduction was four days in Moab, which, of course, is in a lot of ways the doorstep to the great national parks that are there.

If you've been there, you know. But Arches National Park, Canyonlands National Park. Damn. national parks that are there if you've been there you know but arches national park canyonlands national park damn and i'm a national park nerd you know what i mean i've i've been to uh i guess i'd been to seven now official national parks but i got every book i'm a nerd i mean i'm a nerd you know photography websites to see the show i mean i'm a you know what's my dream one day i'm going to go to glacier going to the sun road montana one day right i want to see the alaskan ones too maybe my guy antoine all six foot eight of them that frenchman can mk fan could be my guide but um arches is in canyonlands i mean there's it's just it's canyonlands as the island in the sky

district where you're basically on top of a plateau mountain. And everywhere you look, it's snow covered mountains. But then you look down on the canyon below and then there's canyons and sub canyons. And I mean, it's just you, you know, you stop what you're doing and what you were thinking about and reassess, you know, how small you are and how how big this world is and how beautiful. And as much as my wife's trying to get these family vacations to start going overseas to like London, Scotland, Wales, right. BC checking in with his people. There's so much of this damn great U S of a, that I still want to and need to see. So thank you.

Moab and the great artists that just described the, that, that, you know, put that together there. I mean, I just, I'm humbled by that stuff. Had a nice, nice day in Salt Lake city, just the same as well. A lot of Mormon stuff downtown, apparently, you know, saw a lot of seven foot white guys. I couldn't, I'm like, who's, you know, did you play for the jazz? You might've played for the jazz. I mean, all yeah, that's possible. But it was a great family trip all together. I know it's hard. You you know i grew up living for mike and the mad dog right and i hated when they were alone and i know people hate

even though we've got great filling people in the extended mk universe not just the chuck mendenhall's and the rashad evans's but you know aaron bronstetter thank you shack majori thank you but i know you guys like i hate it when these guys are apart. Hey, we got to live our lives too. All right? All right? We got to live our lives too. That's what it is, okay?

And my family and I, we had a great time. So thank you for the love on that one. Let's get into the live chat portion of this show. I got a couple, I got a bunch of questions that were put together by Mikey Morse here that I'm going to get to if I can find the email. I'll find it soon. All right, here we go. Here we go.

This is from you, the people. You want a life? What do you got? You want life advice? Who am I, right? Well, if you want it, I'll give it to you. How about this from C. Maniche? Is this a trap?

Is this Corey Maniche, our great morning combat producer, Malka fame? By the way, he's a fantastic artist. He's a white guy with soul. You want to check out Lonely Angelus from Maniche on the internet? Check that out, okay? My guy Maniche gets after it, right? Like Chen, yeah. Maniche says, what's the over-under on Irish exits BC will hit this week in Vegas?

Luke also sending me these TikTok memes about Irish exits and painting it on me. Guys, I would never be that rude. Who knows the master at the Irish exit, Ray Bartholomew, the great boxing scribe and one of my best friends in this world. That would be rude. I don't Irish exit, okay? I do it the polite and classy way. I Lithuanian exit, which is I tell you to your face how good of a time I've had and, you know, all that. But, hey, I got to check out early. It's not you. It's me.

All right. On the road, I found out on the road. Of course, in my early 30s, when I first got a taste of like Vegas fight weeks, you know, and I'm suddenly the dad at home. But there I'm like, you know, let's go out for some beers. Let's, you know, let's live it up. And, you know, and I've had vicious hangovers on Mayweather pay-per-view fight days. I'm old now. I'm 44 years old. Okay. And, you know, I protect my mental health a lot on the road and I've grown to learn that that's what I have to do because, you know, I miss my wife, kids, dogs, cats extensively. You know, I go to the movies. I take time to myself, you know, I sit and, you know i go to the movies i take time to myself you know i sit and

you know you know there's the eighth row sometimes too you know i do i do things to protect that looks always let's hang up bro i'm not hanging out with i just hung out with you on the show for two hours what do you think this is mk social club we already did the polish falcons club all right all right everybody was there jay paquette too how about it how was your colombian hot dog look good you know that other guy had colombian hot dogs, too, on Twitter. That looked good, as well. Was that average, Joe? I forgot your name.

All right. The whole point is when you got to go, you got to go. And I'm not talking about dropping a deuce. I'm talking about Lithuanian exit. So, Minich is mad because this is a true story. All right? A couple fights ago ago two years ago whatever i'm in vegas for a fight maniche and the uh the malcolm crew were there and it's like

10 o'clock and we're walking around the new york new york um mikey's telling me it's two international fight weeks ago so what's that two years ago it was at um who fought that year i don't know what was that joanna and uh and uh and and whaley connor dustin three i'm being told yes you're right we did the live show so it's like we're staying in the new york new york which is you know this was the it's the worst because the rooms are like 25 years outdated but i like the new york new york restaurant casino sportsbook scene i like it a lot of times it's a cut through if you're coming or like 25 years outdated, but I like the New York, New York restaurant, casino, sports book scene. I like it. A lot of times it's a cut through if you're coming from the arena, but you're staying in the MGM grand and you don't want to be out there in the summer and 117 degree days

in the center of hell. Right. But I was in the New York, New York and you know, Manichean, I ran to Manichean, the dudes, the camera guys, the producer, I think like Tristan was there with all his animal tat, his animal tats weren't't there yet but he's probably thinking in his head if i put a raccoon here and i connected here and i was like they were like yo we should get some food i'm like you know what let's do that and then it was me who was like yo we should go to this italian restaurant right here i've been here before it was good well here's what happened you know bc can turn into a pumpkin you know you know i would say lu, it's not, you know, it doesn't take long for Luke to act like an absolute bitch,

even though we love him, right? He can go from zero to being like, whoa, bro, right? I had, you know, I had my, I must've had my man period that night. Cause you know, we're sitting down, it's getting tired. I'm like, you know, I gotta be up early tomorrow for MK. I got a store, I got a big feature due on that fight. I was turning into a pumpkin. So the waitress brings us water and you know, the menus are out and I go, you know, Maniche and fellas,

it's not me. It's not you, right? It's me. I'm Lithuanian. And rather than just duck out of here, I got to tell you guys, I shouldn't be eating this stuff. And that was the truth. That was like three months into the BC needs to fix his liver or he's going to die, which is still a work in progress, right? I'm working on it. I was like, I can't eat this stuff right now. It's like 1030, dude. I got to go to, you know, and I'm like, I'm so sorry, guys. I know I made you come here, but let's do this the Lithuanian way. I had a great time with you. I got to go though. All right. Well, I'll see you guys in the morning. You guys are much younger than me. Go out.

Have a great time. You know, live it up, dude. You know, there may have been. You may have. I may have been sitting row eight at that time. You know what I mean? What happened was I got back to the room. I went to sleep for the night.

But then I woke up at like 1225 AM. And I was like, you know, I can't be in fast food or beef or pork anymore because of my liver. But you know what? I'm hungry as balls and I'm a man. And I bet you there's a pizza slice out there that could fit right in this crevice right here and not ruin my weekend. OK, so I got up out of that bed and I admit I went and got two slices of pizza. But what happened was then I ran into that same group of dudes with Maniche at like twelve forty five on the casino floor. And they're like. You know, I broke their heart and I know I did. Right.

They're like, you know, like so they thought that I just blew them off to go do better things. No guys, I blew you off to go to sleep. And then, you know, the indulgence was knocking on my door and, you know, and it's like, you know, a lot of sins chasing you in Vegas. Luckily I stick with the pizza only. I mean, can we put some respect on the Lithuanian exit? It's polite. It's upfront. So I know that looked bad, Maniche, but that was the true story. All right. All right. BC cares.

You know this. Okay. Let's continue on with the fan questions here. Let's go to NY Eokley. That's my wife's dog, Sasha, barking. If you hear that, I'm sorry. Yeah. Keep. Yeah. It's the mailman.

He's here every day. If Jon Jones does retire after the Stipe fight, who do you believe will be the next heavyweight champion? I don't think Jon Jones can retire. I've had this debate with you people and Luke publicly. I think Jon Jones is going to keep winning and defending the heavyweight title and realize, like, I'm making a lot of money. Staying busy keeps me out of trouble

and i'm great and i love being great so i think he's going to stay with it but it looked like dana said the post fight press conference as much as i want this year's ifw which i think is yair versus volkanovski right as much as i want john versus stipe and even if luke doesn't love this fight i love it i love what it means it's history i history. I love it. I do love it. I do love it. I want Francis, obviously, but you know, Davis said we'll never work with Francis again now. Right. Cause he broke up with us. Right. That they're going to do that Madison square garden.

That fight as the historical fitting where Madison square garden makes a lot of sense. So I'm not mad at that this fall, probably November. But if John did retire, I think we originally would have said Cyril Ghosn would be ready because we thought he was of this ilk and ready, but Cyril Ghosn just shat his pants against John Jones. He fell into the trap of John's greatness and he apparently didn't work on his wrestling at all from the Ngannou fight. And that's where we were right there. So who is the future of this division? It might be Sergey Pavlovich. I mean, this Saturday, we're going to find out when he fights Curtis Blades.

But he packaged together two very impressive knockout wins against sub elite guys. That is opening our eyes to who he could actually be. I know he's been stopped early in his UFC run by Overeem. And I know that there's still so much we don't know about this 30-year-old Russian. But this dude has a stupid long reach. He's six foot three. And he's knocked five consecutive guys out

in the first round since that Overeem fight. I don't, you know, lose my lunch over knocking out Marcelo Gomm or the crochet guy Maurice Green or even Shamil Abdur-Akimov but you know yeah and even the Derek Lewis fight had a weird kind of wonky ending but he stopped Lewis in 55 seconds and then he stopped to Ivasa in 54 seconds and if he goes in there and does not get exposed and either stops or really evolves his game to another level and beats a guy like Curtis Blades, who, you know, even though he's come up short multiple times

in trying to get to the title level, will probably inevitably still be lingering around this title level because he's that good. If Pavlovich beats him, he's probably, he's probably the next dude. He's probably that next dude. You know, it's, I don't think it'll, you know, I don't think this may be the last fight. When I lose, we see Stipe. I know, it's, I don't think it'll, you know, I don't think Steve, this may be the last fight. When I lose, we see Steve. I know we've seen some other kinds of turnover in this division, but it's not incredibly deep at the moment.

I mean, Aspinall is going to have to come back from the injury and prove it. He's very much in this conversation as well. But I think Pavlovich is at the front of it at the moment of who might have next. And it slides down pretty aggressively from there with the exception of Gilton Almeida. He, I think is the wild card of the moment. Long-term take my MMA advice as you will.

I wear a white belt for a reason. Yeah. I love playing into that, by the way, do you guys realize I'm Billy Ho and you all right, Billy Hoyle from white men can't jump. I mean, no,

I don't know him on the level of Luke. And yes, there's times that I'm Billy Ho in you? All right, Billy Hoyle from White Men Can't Jump. I mean, no, I don't know MMA on the level of Luke. And, yes, there's times that I'm, you know, we'll have a misstep or we'll be in row eight and we'll score round four for Arnold Allen. But, you know, I've been around this game. You know, I've been in this game for 10 years making rap tunes, right? I mean, ever since Honeys was wearing Sassoon, right? You white belt-taking bitch. All right, let's keep this going.

Here's from Kashish underscore Sana. Finally, BC will be back. I am back, bro. Who do you want to see Benil Darius fight next? How about Charles Oliveira? Because it looks like they're rebooking that. Yeah, that's the fight. I get the whole situation for Darius.

Yes, he's had to go the long way. But you understand why. But this is the fight that will decide. And I get that people are upset when Darius revealed that essentially Dana White was like, you're not the number one contender. But to be fair, I don't think he is either. I mean, I think he's right there. He's in the discussion.

But this is the fight he needs to get there. This is the fight he needs to finally get over that hill. Leon Edwards had to go that long way. Max Holloway had to go the long way to eventually get the title shot. But when he got it, he took care of it and handled his business. Let's rebook this. Let's do it. This is the fight. This decides it.

And this also decides, you know, to some degree, which direction, uh, Joe Bronx is going after that incredible run at the very elite up UBL of what he can be. Good Lord. What he could be is great. Can you still be that? This is why we need this fight. Okay. I love Benny.

I love that. He's not calling. He's not even dying there. He's like, yo, this is who I am, man. I love when he shouted out JC in, in a different land. That was, that was interesting. I was happy he made it out of there. Uh, let's go over down to David underscore Areola one. I love when he shouted out JC in a different land. That was interesting. I was happy he made it out of there.

Let's go over down to David underscore Areola1. I don't know if that's his last name or the description of his moves, but a big fan of this guy, just to say, hey, BC, do you think Nate can actually stop Jake? I mean, yeah, it's possible. I think the idea would be closer to, now look, can Nate land one clean punch that could wobble Jake and put him in trouble and lead to a stoppage? Sure. Jake's a novice. He's a novice with a certain level of experience, though, and certain level of physical advantages that will tell you a Nate knockout is not the most likely outcome here. It would probably be more likely if it did happen, though, to be on accumulation and gassing Jake out.

We've seen Jake in eight-round technical fights at a decent pace. Have we seen Jake in an absolute brawl, right, where he's been hurt and had to come back? I mean, if Nate can drag him into that, again, these guys are at such a novice level in terms of their actual boxing ability at least nate has the long detailed combat history but like things like gassing out can just happen and affect these fights you know or a cut dramatically changing the direction of it but the fight's at 185 as david says here plus jake is going to rehydrate a good amount is he is it best he can hope for a decision? I don't want to say that's the best Nate can hope for.

It's just the most likely outcome. This is a hill Nate's going to have to climb. I mean, I know he's always had some of the best boxing in MMA. I know, you know, remember we used to see him sparring with Andre Ward in the Bay area. I mean, you know, Nate's going to be credible here, but you have to wonder about that size difference. You have to, you have to wonder if Jake can come back stronger, work even harder to adapt his game and really look to be what he is at this level,

which is more of a pure boxer, you know, staying behind that jab. But also he has enough power to keep you in check at this novice level. I think it's probably more likely that Jake wins outright or that there's a decision win here for nate but stoppage not out of the question i'm actually gonna be honest with you i'm interested in this fight i'm interested in it i want to see nate in this space but i want to see how jake responds to that loss to fury where i think that leveled them out to the idea of like fighting canelo one day and fighting for a title i don't mind him staying for now in the larger space of he's going to box KSI eventually. We know that. Would we care about that? I don't know, but we'll care about Nate, right? Yeah,

of course we will. I don't hate this fight. I think Jake does have that built-in youth and size advantage, but he's a real fighter. Jake looks like a real fighter sometimes, but he's more of a pure boxer in this space in this sense let's see what they can do to him um let's go over to volley jerry well i don't know if that's two words or one word voligery that could be a nice nice french name maybe uh favorite debut albums yes now you're asking you know bc the rock critic to so you know what i mean to like do i found a really good store in uh rock uh vinyl store in downtown boulder colorado that was really fun i've got a i got some goods there you know really getting into like robin troyer's solo career as a trio there with james dewar on bass singing

vocals i don't know if you f with that uh edgar winter i've been i've been getting going on that road lately wow speaking of edgar winter by the way, 77, he's featured in the new Portugal, the man single that just came out. I think it's called champ. Check that out. Check that shit out. It's the new album for Portugal, the man coming out June 23rd.

Can't wait. Can't wait there. John and company. Can't wait. Let's go with this. He wants to know the best debut albums in rock history. In my opinion, I take questions like this seriously.

Cause I live for this shit. Remember when I, I want to say higher learning remember when that came out wow that was eye-opener right remy wow i was gonna say um do you remember when um what's the uh the the john cusack movie the um high fidelity came out that was that movie that came out of bridge like oh my god bc they made a movie about you. All you ever do is rank things. Like, what's your top five this? What's your this? I'm a keyboard warrior. I rank palm for palmless. I don't

get in the cage. Like Max said afterwards in the post-fight press conference on Saturday, I can't get too mad at the media who keep doubting me. A lot of those guys haven't been in real fights in their life and they're probably in their basement wearing a red plaid shirt and a Chuck Vindenhall hat drinking coffee out of a peach I mean he's right he is right all right debut albums love this what makes a great debut album

you say BC here's where you need to be to get on this list in my opinion the debut album has to arguably be their best work which is you know it's rare i mean think of how many albums sometimes it takes a band two to three albums to really put it together right you know it also has to in some degree have changed the direction of the genre or been a large enough statement within that actual genre where people like oh, oh, shit. You know what I mean? Like, yeah. Like, wow.

And it has to do just what I said. It has to make a monster splash. Shout out to a couple honorable mentions. You certainly could go Ready to Die by B.I.G. If you want to include the hip hop into this, you can certainly go. Two offerings from Ozzy, not just Black Sabbath's 1970 self-titled debut, but Ozzy's solo debut, 1980's Blizzard of Oz, when he brought in the next level superstar Randy Rhoads on guitar. Those could easily be in this list, but this is BC's top 10 list here. So here are my top 10 debut albums in rock history in order.

Number 10, I don't think you can have a list without this being in here. The Doors by The Doors, 1965. I'm not like a major doors fan but i'm a strong doors fan you know i always had like morrison hotel and la woman on cd and i've been slowly trying to get my dad my dad donated my dad did me a solid in june june of last year it's his record collection of you know late 60s early 70s rock that I grew up like reading the the liners of that made me a music fan so when I got into vinyl in the pandemic you know he was like oh I'm gonna leave all mine to you and you know and in my will one day right it's always like you

know that bittersweet like I lose my dad but I get his record collect no I'm just kidding you know it's like oh that's great then my dad called me one day he's like you know what I'm gonna I'm gonna actually not wait until then I'm gonna give you I'm gonna give it to you now i'm gonna drive it up so he drove it up and i got his collection and it's been incredible i mean this is this is you know this is what made me a fan so i got a couple you know in between doors albums that i got um people are strange and uh the the soft parade and but the first one where where music was in 19, you know, at that point, did I say 65? Is that right? I thought it was 67. This thing, this thing came out of nowhere. This thing really hit the mark. Yeah, September of 65. I think the other part of the element of what makes a great debut album is if i said arguably their best work sometimes you go to another level if

their debut album could stand alone as a greatest hits album i think that that sometimes is like that fits the description this is not necessarily the case with the doors it's not like littered from start to finish with every song you've heard of but it was strong and this was such a unique band that you know didn't always employ a full-timeist, had Ray Manzarek playing the bass on the keys. And, you know, Robbie Krieger had such a unique style of blues bass guitar. But it was, you know, the poetry of more. I mean, this was like this. This hit as hard, I'd have to imagine. And that's all I can do. Right. When I live in the vinyl of the 60s and 70s and go back and imagine it in his time.

It's sort of like it's Sergeant Pepper your favorite beatles album bc no it's actually not even close to one of my favorite albums but anytime i hear somebody say that sergeant pepper is the greatest album in rock history i cannot argue with them because was i alive in 1967 and a fan of the beat the beatles pop music only to have something that abstract and psychedelic just dropped on the scene to change everything? No, I wasn't, right? Sometimes, you know, when those albums hit at that time, The Doors, to some degree, hit like that because of how unique they are, yet they did obviously fit in the regular, you know, AM radio space at the time, but that's as strong now as that album's ever been. Number nine, I can't believe it took me

this long to find this i've talked to you before about how rem you know when you come into rem only from losing my religion shiny happy people stand you know i mean anytime they're doing shit with the b-52s it's like man i hate rem you know and it's like you know when you're a young ignorant teenager you might not look at michael stipe and say nice things about him because he was always so outspoken and all of that. But I'm happy I've come around to find the true brilliance in our album artistry and art that REM has done at times and the different genre turns that they've taken. But the first two REM albums are freaking amazing. And 1983's Murmur, their first one, you know, it's, yeah, it's new wave technically and it's early alternative, but it doesn't sound like 1983 and it doesn't even sound like anything today.

It's just its own thing. And the second album, Reckoning, is sort of like part two of this to some degree, and they're both great. But if you think you knew R.E. like, like I thought I kind of didn't, didn't like him and hated them almost as much as I hate you too. And other great bands that some people really love. I was wrong. Murmurs incredible. And it's, and it's dude, it's, it's, it's the baseline. There's almost, who's the basis. Is that Mike? What's his name? Peter Buck on guitar. Who's the damn bassist? That guy plays almost McCartney. Like he's playing almost, you know, alternate rhythm guitar there. that that's one of those we were like that's almost the greatest hits album in itself um when that hit

think of where rock was in 1978 you know corporate rock you know bands like boston and foreigner and you know sticks i mean like you know those i like some of those bands and some of those bands can put out a good album, but rock in 1978 kind of sucked, just like rock from like 98 through 2002 kind of just really sucked the horn, right? And then this just hits and it's not really hard rock, but it kind of fits in that category. It's not really pure rock and roll,

but it kind of fits in that category. It's really, you got this R&b lounge singer david lee roth and you know the most classically trained and next level you know it's like people have wrongfully put eddie van halen in the heavy metal genre for years which he's never been in but it's almost like he's he's prog in a way you know it's almost he, he took like a classical prog element, mixed it with the R and B of David Lee Roth. And then it came out and it sounded like rock and it was incredible. The mature, you know,

you love about a countdown like this for debut albums when the maturity in the first album is so next level, I'm not saying the songs and the lyrical content of any prime Van Halen was mature, but the maturity of the music at that point, they didn't need a couple albums to put it together, right? They came out of the womb fully formed and dominant. Van Halen 1 will still blow you away. And it still has that time, which is a theme in a countdown like this. It's timeless. Doesn't sound like then. Doesn't even sound like now. It just sounds awesome uh number seven uh 1992 40 ounces to freedom by sublime

i mean does that say it all um i used to try to uh protect records cds albums great albums meaning it's always like like like look if i like i've listened to led zeppelin 2 is like arguably the greatest rock album of all time. I wouldn't put it there, but it's arguably. But I've heard it 5000 times. Right. Just as much as we've heard Zoso and all that. You know what I mean? I mean, I've heard it like to the levels that I could almost never appreciate again how great it was because I I've just overdone it. I've overdosed on it. You know what I mean? You'd have to just not listen to it for 10 years and then hear it with fresh ears again, or put on expensive headphones and then be like, damn.

I got to a point around age 17 where I thought, you know what? I got to protect. It's a weird nerd way to do it, but I got to protect the amount of times I hear albums that I know are great. I used to listen to Abbey Road only like on my birthday. How weird is that? Right? But I had to protect it. You know, the first record where I just said, I'm taking the training wheels off. I'm not following the rules. I I just said, I'm taking the training wheels off. I'm not following the rules. I'm not protecting. I'm not limiting the amount of times I hear this

so I can still recognize its greatness. I am swimming in the pool, no matter how many times you put that Hershey bar at the bottom of it. I'm in this. Pee in the pool, pee in the sink, all you want. Act like a Hells Angel. 40 ounces to freedom by Sublime.

You can put on from start to finish and play it 17 times in a row and it will never get old and never not be awesome because it's so much in one. It's so many songs. It's so many genres mixed in together. It's like surf guitar slash reggae inspired, but it also thrashes. I mean,

it's, it's, you know, it's got the pop tunes as well to fulfill you there. Damn. Right. Damn, right? Damn. All right, number six. We never got another one from this guy.

And it's unfortunate, right? Jeff Buckley's Grace, 1994. You were talking about maturity. This may be the most mature debut album that there's ever been. I mean, it's still, I still, I'm still figuring this record out, which kind of sounds weird. I remember when I bought it in probably 96 and had so much acclaim. And I think, I think Buckley had just died in that drowning in that river.

And you never got to put out the sophomore record or anything like that. But I remember like thinking, man, this isn't good. Everyone says it's five stars, not that good. You know, it took me a while to unwrap it. And that's, that's the, that's the best, the best, the best albums that truly endure in your life are not the ones that were instantly accessible. It can happen, right? Led Zeppelin 2 is, is instantly accessible. It's like the rare one. And it leads to being overplayed on classic rock radio to the point where you can never appreciate it at the same level again. But the true ones that stick with you, the okay computers by Radiohead are the ones that you need 15 to 20 listens to

begin to understand the direction of what's actually happening here. Grace by Jeff Buckley was so mature and stood out for its time of 1994, which was, you know, prime grunge, but this was just, damn. I mean, it had some levels of like Van Morrison influence, 70s maturity in it. But it's so just musically complex and the lyrics. And obviously people come for the Hallelujah cover that they added in after the fact. But, you know, Lover, You Should Have Come Over.

I mean, put that track on right now, right? I mean, good Lord, that thing. It's obviously a shame that we never got another one, but you can still listen to it. His solo live at Sine E, two CD set, if you haven't heard that, it's just him on a solo on an electric guitar doing like Dylan and Van Morrison covers in his own songs, but somehow creating an orchestra with his own sound.

I mean, it's just, it's brilliant. Number five on the greatest debut albums in rock history. Try to act like this doesn't belong here. You can't. Rage Against the Machine by Rage Against the Machine, 1992. I mean, in some ways it launched that rock rap crossover, yet never, it's weird. It launched it, but in reality the rock the rap rock

crossover sucks i mean you know outside of like walk this way by aerosmith around dmc that was pretty cool no it was it was one of the best things ever happened it was awesome but you know you can't you know i love 311 who who can tease that i love you know um there's been certain bands that can kind of pull it off sometimes they do it more in a ska lane but you know the true rap rock mix has largely sucked i mean it led to things like limp biscuit and and other really bad things but you know i love that rage kind of started it but then was never really in it and stood separate from it but there's very few records you'll ever put on that that i mean i talk about higher learning right try to act like when you saw higher learning or or um what's that uh do the right thing from spike lee when you saw

that for the first time as like a suburban teenage white kid you're like oh my god right like that was like powerful like what do i do after that right that's kind of what happened after listening to this cd for the first time remember my dad bought it before anyone had even heard of this band. He went down to Strawberries in Naugatuck, Connecticut, shout out. And he bought it and he played it at full volume in my basement every day for like the next year. I mean, it was in, you know, my swim team, Naugatuck High, used it as a rallying cry. They made these giant banners that wrote war and die on them. And, you know, it causes the parents of the opposing teams to be outraged well this mohawk swim team came in and dominated them fueled by this this album but

it's it's it was never cliche even though it's like extreme rap rock metal with a lot of profanity that becomes an anthem in so many youths lives, you know, like, fuck you. I won't do what you tell me. And all the other great ones. It's never been reduced to that because it's so damn brilliant from Tom Morello's guitar, you know, songwriting, guitar licks to obviously Jack Dela Roach's timely political poetry, which is, you know, the last thing I want in music. You know, I mean, I like Bob Dylan blowing in the wind. You know, I get that whole movement.

You know, I get that, you know, even Crosby, Stills, and Nash. I get when it matters when you cross over and can make a political statement in art and that it can mean something. Pearl Jam Forever has tried to do that, you know, put their politics first. And I just don't want that in my music. You know what I mean? It's like when people don't want that in their UFC, right? So we're not going to talk about that on the broadcast. But Rage made it cool. They made everything cool. They were scary. It was so scary. I mean, people that went to the Rage Wu-Tang concert in 1997 in Hartford, Connecticut or 98, whatever that was, and the place burnt down, they, you know, they know the power of that. But also the record still holds up

to this day. And that was their debut. Are you kidding me uh number four um this is what this list has been made for records like this 1967 the velvet underground and nico by the velvet underground talk about changing a genre talking about you know talking i mean that's 67 is is the summer of love but that's also prime psychedelic rock era i mean there was in there was a couple of years stretch there it first started in the pop lanes think beatles rolling stones the birds but it's extended eventually out into more harder rock and progressive rock but there was a run there where that psychedelic rock scene was just incredible and so experimental and so unique i'm still buying the

vinyl today of these bands some that you never heard of or some that you have but like the birds like if you don't know about um uh sorry between the buttons by the rolling stones is the reference i wanted to make there and then simultaneously at that time the birds come out with uh it's it's one of the greatest albums of all time and it's it's wracking my brain at the moment uh the notorious bird brothers you know there's just so much going on there in the crossovers of psychedelic rock and folk and what they're doing but in 1967 something came out that was you know 67 is also sergeant pepper by the way so we're talking about a major era of change in popular music and then the velvet underground nico comes in and you're like there's just you know talk about rage against the machine sort of being like sounds like nothing else ever this debut album sounds like nothing else ever i mean even the band

changed their i mean this you know white light white heat is probably the closest to this album in terms of the experimental of it in the velvet short catalog but nothing hits like this this is abstract and jarring to listen to you know i mean put on put on heroin but i mean put on that song and listen and feel what it's what it's probably like i mean damn and then you add in nico's just bizarre but beautiful vocals on top of that it's it's yeah uh number three is another self-titled one how about let me forget about this in the pantheon to some degree about how great it actually is 1969 the first crosby stills and nash record self-titled um it gets forgotten not forgotten of its greatness but it's like it produced so many radio hits.

It's just sort of like, oh, I know what that is. But then you go back and put it on and realize that this is one of rock's first true supergroups. And, you know, three guys from such different bands, the Birds, Buffalo Springfield and the Hollies coming together. obviously magic in the way that they sang their harmonies mixed with steven stills incredible band leadership in terms of being a maniacal songwriter and you know somebody who would force the studio to be open 24 hours a day wouldn't sleep for three days and i mean he's he's you want more on steven stills check out the double album manassas that might change your life but steven stills was the you know the brains behind it yet there's purpose in the, you know, the brains behind it. Yet there's purpose in the songs, you know, from from that political protest sort of crossover. There's incredible harmonies that they're known for. But the song structures from a pop craft are just next level and different. I mean, look at Sweet Judy Blue Eyes, right? There's there's a lot going on there that it's not your dad's record. You know what I mean? It is probably from your dad's collection like mine is but you go put that on uh you know think of um marrakesh express think of you know guinevere think of all the dude deep deep deep uh number two um it's hard not to put this number

one this is the greatest album of the 1990s fight me over it it's 10 by pearl jam 1991 and it took a while for this to really hit i mean i didn't remember i don't know the first time i heard it was like early 93 and maybe i'm wrong on the timeline maybe it's late 92 but the whole point is it took a bit but you know there's very few albums i can tell you i remember where i was who i was with and what it felt like the first two or three times i heard this and this was in the back of Rich Brenia's tiny Geo Metro, wherever the hell he drove on the way home from school. You know, I, you know,

I was a freshman and I was walking from the bus stop and the bus stop was like a mile and a half away from my house. And it was, you know, it was lame and they come riding by and they're like, Oh, you want to ride? I'm like, yeah, the cool kids do. Of course I want to ride. Hop in the back. And then they got, you know, normally you'd be listening to the Jerky Boys, but instead that day they put on 10 by Pearl Jam and jacked it up. And I remember like he pulled the car over and we sat there for like 45 minutes and just

listened to it. Didn't say a word to each other and just kind of rocked out. And, you know, and it's like, you know, I did that to Abbey Road before in a crowd full of people, but it's rare when that happens. It's sort of this collective, like this art is in front of us and also people like oh yeah pearl jam was a bit no really go back and put this on you know this is it's weird pearl jam it's like one of the most enduring modern rock bands like they're still as great live as they've ever been they're still when they come out with new records like they're good but we think of them in the encapsulation largely of the first

three albums because of how much they were in our face on radio and MTV and all that. And, you know, they fought Ticketmaster. I mean, there's a lot there, but sometimes you can forget the powerful statement that this first record was. I mean, it's the most emotional record in rock history. And in my opinion, I think that's because of what Eddie Vedder poured into the singing where the voice, the vocals became an instrument that was almost better than MacReady's incredible guitar work.

And there's longing. There's longing in these lyrics. It's like, I don't know, would you rather have, for as much as Pearl Jam has sustained, almost on a Rolling Stones-like level, they never did something like this again. They've had great records since then. I mean, versus Vitality. I mean, they have no code. Some people love Yield.

I know real Pearl Jam fans that kind of have tattoos on their body that are like, no, Yield's really the best one. That's like, okay, that's cool. Maybe I'm not as hardcore as you. Maybe I'm not. But I know how 10 made me feel, and I know it still makes me feel like that today. And sometimes, you know, they never, they never bested that. And to their credit, they stayed around and evolved and still put out great content. They never bested that. That's, that's angst. That's years of grinding. That's running, you know, that's how do I,

this past that shaped me but is also haunting me how do i express what what this has done to me and how i feel i mean and even though it's it's linked at times in that seattle scene with nirvana who gets credit for kind of launching and changing grunge and they did with their second album uh smells like teen spirit and they and they just did something so drastic right like a sergeant pepper level of shift change in the music scene they did and i know pearl jam and song garden all get linked with that but pearl jams rock to me sounds even though it's firmly in grunge it's also classic it has a classic rock element to it and that's pure emotion that's great guitar work

that's yeah and then finally uh we won't be going deep on here sorry if you if you're into the rock you're you're into this you may have checked out a while ago once i stopped talking about max holloway but number one you're talking about the greatest hits album in their first album 1967 right all that that year that all that changed and all the psychedelic rock and everything happened and velvet underground and nico well yeah there was also are you experienced by the jimmy hendrix experience and this is also a record because and all the psychedelic rock and everything happened and Velvet Underground and Nico. Well, yeah, there was also Are You Experienced by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. And this is also a record,

because it's a veritable greatest hits, that we tend sometimes to go, you know, is it really that great? I mean, I know all those tracks. I've heard them a million times. No, no. They're really from start to finish. I mean, how mature is that?

You know, how mature is that? It's groundbreaking in psychedelic rock yet Hendrix was such a massive Dylan fan that it's you know it's also introspective at times and it's and talk about a power trio you know we think of Cream we think of you know Grand Funk Railroad we think of some of these I mean how about this as a power trio? They could do pop craft. They could do psychedelic. They could do real blues. They, this is, this is among the greatest records of all time. And I think it's the greatest record by a debuting artist in rock history.

Hit me in the comments. If you think differently, I'm sure cannibal corpses first records probably really good, right? Yeah, baby. To close here. What do really good. Right? Yeah, baby. To close here, what do we got? PJ Hay 7 says, BC, what would a dream celebrity dinner be for you and your sons, someone you would all want to hang out with? That's a cool question. I would have to say the only person that really maybe intersects between me and my two twin sons who are very different in personality and everything might be Arnold Schwarzenegger because I did get them into the Arnold genre. And my, one of my sons is like

writes papers in middle school about how Arnold's his hero and stuff. And that's awesome. And this is my same son, Isaac, who of course met Usain Bolt and we all got to meet him and sit down with him. And that was a life-changing experience through Kids Wish Network. Shout out, we did that. But I would think Arnold, because he told Kids Wish Network that it would be either Usain Bolt or Arnold Schwarzenegger. That's who he picked. I think that would be a big hit. From there though, it's hard to intersect completely. But my kids love that dude, Mr. Beast. He gives all that money away on YouTube and makes those weird videos. I'm sure they'd love that. And I'd love to see them pop for that. But, you know, it wouldn't be a rock music guy or anything like that.

Although I'm taking my son Isaac, who's a big music fan and rock and roll fan, to his first concert ever this June. And it's going to be my morning jacket back in the tennis arena in West Haven, Connecticut, which produced the greatest concert I've ever seen last year. So I am a smitten pops, to say the very least. Finally, the last question that they're giving me here is from Nyspawn91. BC, if Luke was a kind of food, what kind of food would he be? Well, he'd be both spicy and hard to cut through. He'd be highly rated by the hipster minority, but probably hated by everybody else.

And he'd be arguably telling you why that food is truly the best. Yeah, I mean, Luke's a big, smart piece of meat who is opinionated. And can we make that into a food that makes sense? Probably not. But I love Luke Thomas just the same. Mikey's offering crab leg. Hard to break his shell, but soft on the inside. What do you do?

Wow. Look at that, Mikey. There's a winner right there. Yeah, Luke's a little bit of a crab leg there. People sometimes hit me in the DMs like, do you really hate Luke? Does he really hate you? Is this show really going to end?

The show's not going to end. All right. Luke does have a contract renewal this summer. Hopefully everything goes to speed and I'm up next year. But we love it here. We're doing great work. Are we brothers in arms in this game? Which means sometimes, you know, we piss each other off.

Yes. Sometimes we cross each other's non-negotiables in big ways. But that's also the damn show, people., but that's also the damn show people. Okay. That's also the damn show. That's sometimes I'm not going to lie to you. Sometimes Luke wants to hang out too much and I'm not trying to stiff arm him because I don't want to be his friend.

I do. We are friends, but I'm trying to retain the dynamic of this show. Why? Because something changed and saved by the bell when zach and slater stopped being rivals chasing after kelly and trying to rule the school and teamed up still still a great show right didn't have that edge i'm not i'm not losing the edge that makes this show just to hang out with luke in his room in order luke does the most peculiar thing ever when he gets takeout food he

gets two to three main entrees pays for himself i don't know if he expenses it eats waits until they're cold then eats like half of one and throws the rest away he's a he's a he's that's what luke thomas i bet i got some you know i mean i got really gross toes right i mean that's another topic all together all right thank you to mikey more on the ones and twos behind the scenes. Luke, I believe we'll be back next week after a tank versus Ryan on Showtime pay-per-view Saturday night, but here's the deal set to fly out to Las Vegas this week. And if all goes well, it's going to be, and I arrived there, it's going to be spectacular. It's tank Davis versus Ryan Garcia, Saturday night Showtime pay-per-view.

I will be on the ground in Vegas for live morning combat episodes with special guests on both Wednesday and Friday. I believe we have a studio to Mikey norms is going to be with me there. And then also don't forget we have a Thursday press conference for tank and King Ryan, a Friday weigh-in and saturday prelims on the showtime sports youtube channel no luke thomas this week because he's visiting with family having a great time but your boy bc ariel hawani and kate abdo are you kidding me what kind of trio is this i don't know maybe. Maybe the greatest of all time. You got to tune in to see.

This is going to be a wild mix. But yeah, Thursday's presser, Friday's weigh-in, Saturday's prelims, and the Showtime pay-per-view countdown show. Can't wait, guys. I thought I was going to get into the fight this week. Didn't get a chance to in this episode today because I babbled too much about rock and roll. But this whole week is going to be Tank versus Ryan. So, yes, we're going to preview the UFC heavyweight match this weekend. And Bellator has two,

two good looking cards from Hawaii, including titles at stake and some things you definitely have to focus on and watch for. And we'll cover that, but you can go to youtube.com slash morning combat for all the bonuses this week. Right now, you can check out Luke Thomas's dissected of Gervonta tank Davis, which is fantastic interviews to come as well this week and a lot more.

So don't miss it. Thank you guys for tuning in. If you did the full two hours, um, sometimes the BC live check could hit you right in the field spot, right? Sometimes it makes you right in the comments that you can't wait for Luke to come back, but either way, you guys are here because you want to be, apparently. And because of that, you've made us the best sports podcast. Once again, thank you, Sports Podcast Group. Thank you to the fans for voting us in. Take care of yourselves, all right?

Yeah, I think that's about it. I'm BC. I'm signing off. All your hoes, they won't stay loyal. But you knew that coming in, right? That's the price you pay in this game, Batch. that's about it. I'm BC. I'm signing off all your hoes. They won't stay loyal. You know, but you knew that coming in, right? That's the price you pay in this game batch. But I am Brian Campbell and I'm telling you to take care of it upstairs first. Okay. Put, it's okay to put yourself first once in a while. All right. Talk to somebody. It's okay. Look, life will kick you

right in the stick. All right. You know, whether you let it or not, they'll find a way to get there. Like Karatanov versus Mitrione won, but there are ways around it in this life okay it's never too late to make a big comeback yeah i'm looking at you is it your time are you coming on you're coming on then come on brother okay but for me i'm out of here let's do it yeah