MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Vettori-Costa Recap | Bellator 269 Recap | Stevenson TKOs Herring | EP 220

Episode Date: October 25, 2021

The guys are back to recap all the action in combat sports from a packed weekend. In the UFC, MArvin Vettori takes down Paulo Costa via UD. What is going on with Costa? They also recap Bellator 269, including Usman Nurmagomedov's impressive win and Fedor's devestating KO of Tim Johnson. Plus, in boxing, Shakur Stevenson dominates Jamel Herring. (7:00) - Vettori Bests Costa by UD (18:30) - Paulo Costa’s Future (34:15) - Fedor turns back the clock (46:40) - Who else in MMA impressed? (55:31) - Shakur Stevenson Morning Kombat’ is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Bullhorn and wherever else you listen to podcasts.    For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit: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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That's the spirit we bring to this show I'm Luke Thomas I'm Brian Campbell This is Morning Combat Hello everybody It's the 25th of October 2021 And it is time, I think it's episode 220 for Morning Combat. Hello there.

I am Luke Thomas. I am from the capital of Los Estados Unidos, and I am one half of your hosting duo from CBS Sports, my CBS Sports and Showtime brethren. He is the king of Connecticut. He is washed like a used car waiting to be picked up by someone with five bucks to give. My friend and yours. It's Brian Campbell. Hello, Brian Campbell.

Hello, Luke. Hello, Luke. People know what they get when they get this show, right? If they get it, they know what they get, okay? We light a candle. We run laps around the English channel. Neptune's got a cocker spaniel. What, what, what, what what what what what right i mean what

what else is there to say right you got narratives what do you got okay we got the best damn show in combat sports going today bc lt okay sometimes dk sometimes bukkake we're gonna stir it around regardless okay we're gonna stir that shit up dude i remember when that song came out i was a freshman in college when that song came out i'm like let me get this straight the opening bars are we light a candle run laps around the english channel neptune's got a cocker spaniel that's the name that's what we're doing here okay all right noriega i see what you did all right i'll forgive you because the cnn album is good but probably because you forgave him because the song is is is is the shit lu Luke. It was good.

It was what? What? What? It was a good song. All right. We have a lot to do today. So we got stuff to get to in terms of UFC Fight Night 196, Costa and Vittori. Bellator happened over the weekend in Moscow, Russia.

We've got Shakur Stevenson results we have to get to. Hey, don't bury the lead. Fedor's back, brother. Okay? He's back with a bang. Fedor. God damn, Fedor. He might be.

He might be. It was a great win for him, which we'll talk about here as well. Plus, we have your DMs we have to get to. We have to get to. Have you seen this shit? We have a lot. So, thumbs up on the video. Hit subscribe.

If you're new here, we do this three times a week, 11 a.m. in the East, Monday, Wednesday, Friday. You can follow us at these social places. The name Morning Combat is consistently the same through all social channels, MK on the combat there uh what else do we got showtime we warned you guys you wanted to watch showtime best place to do it only place to do it you can go to showtime.com get a 30-day free trial if you like it you may keep it if not you can go but if you had it you could have watched fedor plus billions plus just all kinds of stuff so you know you know, you got that. BC, the MK store, morningcombat.store. You know, we've turned things around.

It's so hot. It's so hot right now. Dad had to turn the car around to get directions, but he got them, and I feel like it's fixed now. Excuse me, sir. Do you know how to get to the interstate? Fuck your mama. Thanks very much.

What movie? Yeah, you nailed it you nailed it there you go there you go uh look morningcombat.store is the home not for this shirt but but uh our our merch master just said hey i don't even have that on our site i'm going to get that up today so here's the deal folks we want you in our halloween merch so we're going to give you a last chance special to put this shit on your body you want want 10% off? How about go to morningcombat.store, put in our code live10. If you order this during the show or anything else on the website, 10% off. I'm telling you, our merch is pretty damn good right now, okay? There's some UFC guys,

and there's our real merch. Yes, there it is, okay? You want Luke's face. You want a drug rug, not today, but this week. Looking good. Looking good, folks. Okay, so get ready for that money. But right now, 10% off. Get yourself the mug that you should be drinking with every morning. Get yourself the, what do they call it? A little bag, Luke, that you put above your satchel.

It's like a little bag. It's not the European man bag that you wear wear it's the uh the fanny pack luke thank you wow that just i feel like i'm swimming alone i loved watching you wiggle like a worm on a hot rock trying to eat the broken recesses of your brain to call that one up tag me in tag tag me out please all right luke whatever you got the deal that's all i got so there you goombat.store, great place to go. What else do we got? We got, oh, you want to leave us a five-star Apple review, Apple Podcasts, to help us cheat and scam the algorithm?

If you do and you leave a funny one, we'll send you a gift certificate. But either way, please go leave us a five-star review. Our bosses really care about it. Listen, me and Brian don't really care all that much, we can be honest with you, but our bosses care a lot, so we're trying to make them happy. So please help us scam the system and leave us a nice five-star review.

My wife's got bottles upon bottles of male vitamins she wants me to take in the morning. I don't know what they are or what they do, Luke, you know what I'm saying? But apparently they're good for you. So that's what I'm taking, Luke. Okay, I didn't know about that. But all right, sounds good.

Always good to swallow horse pills in the morning. Enjoy your hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin cocktail each morning. I don't know if I'm forgetting anything else. I think that is about it. We got merch. We got Showtime. We got all the stuff for us. So without further ado, BC, we'll talk about our weekends a little bit later.

Let's get this started because we have a big weekend of fights to get to are you ready hey Chewy hey Chewy let's bang let's bang you thought I wasn't going to know the Chevy Chase I did I did that's one of my favorite all-time scenes are you kidding me all right let's go to topic number one we start with the UFC here card itself was so-so, fine, okay, whatever, but main event, absolutely sensational. So Marvin Vittori defeats Paulo Costa in what can only be described as something of a five-round slugfest. All right, we got to get to both guys. Let's start with the winner, BC. With that kind of performance, especially considering the fact that they had to fight 20 pounds up due to whatever you want to call the negligence, the unprofessional conduct, whatever you want to say about Polo Kosta.

They had to go to 205 to make this fight happen. He's 28 years old. What did you learn about Marvin Vittori from this fight, this performance, this week really going forward? How do you assess him? Yeah, there were things I already suspected or thought I knew about him, but they were really just cemented down. This is a ballsy effort, a ballsy win, a very manly win. This was your caveman special, meaning it was a brawl. It was at a fight of the year contender, maybe on the lower scale,

but it was just full-on entertainment. It wasn't the best for skill or defense. It was the best for two guys walking each other down and finding out who's the tougher. And the reason why Vittori was able to go the distance is because he's tough as shit. I mean, he walked right through that head kick like it was nothing. That part was eye-opening. But look, the reason why he was able to win it, separate from the things that we're going to talk negative about Costa in a minute, was I thought Vittori stuck to a pretty interesting game plan, stuck to his technique in an outright slugfest between two guys who at a certain point were like we're just going for it which was basically when this fight started I thought Vittori uh was more true to technique

in setting up his punches look overall Luke it didn't advance him in my eyes meaning you know hey let's get him shined up and ready for another title shot. Obviously, he's got an uphill battle with the fact that he's lost twice to the current champion. But this did nothing negatively, though. I think the only negative is maybe a little concern moving forward that to compete against the very elite Vittori, who showed good technique, good game planning, good everything, not great. Not great head movement, not defense. He's going to have to accrue a lot of damage, Luke, to beat the very best. technique good game planning good everything not great not great head movement not defense he's

gonna have to accrue a lot of damage luke to beat the very best but he's young enough right now and again he was in an absolute savage battle with a lot going against him meaning the last minute move up and wait and he was just the better smarter tougher fighter throughout a deserved victory an impressive one uh maybe in the end all it does is hold serve for him but it was a needed win coming off of the title loss I like this win for him I'm not I wouldn't say I really disagree with anything you're saying but I guess I get the spirit of what I take from it was a little bit more um a little bit higher here's what I mean by that so I basically agree with your assessment of the fight I thought he was good for the most part everywhere defense obviously could have been a

little bit better but you know dude we'll talk about Costa in a minute I thought he was good for the most part everywhere. Defense obviously could have been a little bit better, but you know, dude, we'll talk about Costa in a minute. I thought he actually performed pretty well, all things considered, but okay, we're talking about Vittori. So again, I'll give his performance pretty solid marks all the way through, but there was two things about it I really liked. One was he clearly had a good game plan of not just backing up Costa, but Costa defends with his hands like this constantly in front of his face with a high guard. They clearly knew he was going to do that. And there was lots of body work that he was able to do. It wasn't as impressive as those hooking digs to the body that sometimes Costa threw, but it was consistent. And then he would use that to change angles and then go around the

guard with hooking punches, which we'll talk about Shakur Stevenson did to Jamal Herring a lot as well. But he went to this over and over again. He would throw something in his face to bring the hands up, and then he had this consistent body work and hooking punches and changing angles. And whenever he did that, he was basically in command of the entire fight. I thought that was – he could stick to a disciplined game plan and obviously had five rounds of cardio even at 205 pounds. Like the guy comes in – like you don't really ever have to worry about whether or not Marvin Vittoria is going to make weight and be in shape. 205 notwithstanding, I know he

would have made 185, no problem. The guy is a pro in that sense. I think the second thing I liked was what he said after the fight was over, BC. He was like, listen, of course I want the title. That's my goal. I would never say no to having a fight for the title, but I'm not trying to rush it. I wanted a good experience against a good opponent. I got one here today. I'm looking for another one. Dude, it's that recognition that he's very talented. He's very high on the mark, but for something to be different, the next time he goes for the title, he just needs to get better. One of the great things about Vittori is that you know he's going to be in shape and you know if the fight goes long, he's just not going to wilt. He's very, very sturdy defensively that way, durable as well, but he is going to need to find the kinds of offense that get him

meaningfully closer to a finish, not just the kind that wins rounds. You can do the kind of offense that wins rounds if you're the sort of stick and move type. That's not exactly what he is. He was kind of in your face a little bit on this one, although he was trying to be strategic as he could. Still, what I took from this fight, BC, was at 28 years old with that attitude and the foundation of skills that he has, is he ready to be a championship caliber fighter? Not yet. Not yet. But he has an understanding of where he's at. I think maybe for the first time in a long time, he applied it against a very tough opponent who had a bit of a fifth round surge. He was clinical. He was disciplined. He was, frankly, the smarter of the two. He was the one putting his punches and strikes in combination when Paulo Costa wasn't.

I like this performance from vittori he gets he has a reputation as being kind of aggro which i'm not saying is undeserved but it doesn't really tell the full story of how much of a thinking fighter he can be when presented against someone who is just much more of a physical brute than he was i like this performance i did overall but i i do want to be sobering and clear here as he stands right now this operating version this operating procedure in his you know early physical prime here I don't think he's title contender I don't think he's I don't think he's a threat to win the championship Luke is what I'm saying so yeah you were more impressed than I was about what this means to

his future obviously I thought it was again he held held serve in a profound way. Do you think there's still time for him to add the necessary craft to his game that could get him over that hurdle that I'm putting in front of him that, okay, will he ever fight for a title again? Well, he's got the ability to. Let's give him that. He's just a balls out aggro. He almost killed Karl Roberson in a hotel lobby and I'm sure he got bit once got busy in a Burger King bathroom Luke but I see a ceiling in front of him do you think that's a ceiling he can shatter I do I do if he was 30 or 32 or something like that a little bit closer to 32 then I would be like this is more or less what you get he's 28 he's 28 if he keeps going I mean usually the problem is people develop offense

that can be pretty good, and then the defense is slow to come along. His are actually fairly comparable. His defense is pretty good. His offense is pretty good. Neither is lights out. So they've kind of come along at the same level, which means he hasn't quite developed that skill relative to the opposition that he can lord over them other than will and being sturdy and big and strong like he's good at those kinds of things obviously

you mean some of those are naturally part of who he is but i mean he's developed and leaned into those um natural qualities as well so to me what you're saying is what can he do by the time he's 31 where he's in his physical prime at that point he's's had, let's say, three, I think he just turned 28 in September or something like that. So in three years relative to that, how much more offensive skill can he build? In theory, and of course we will never know, but in theory, dude, a lot. He's with a good team. He trains hard. Like I mentioned, he's always going to be in shape.

He doesn't seem to get injured a lot from what we can tell either. He's got a lot of things where, is he the fastest learner I've ever seen? No, he's not. But he's already pretty good, and he's got the wind at his back in terms of youth. If he can just slow down and really work on a few things, just a few things that he can put into motion to make his offense more dynamic, I really think he could give people at the top of that division already more than he is a shitload of problems.

Yeah. I'd like to see him more offensive in the top game. I'd like to see him have wrestling as more of a threatening option rather than just a change of pace option. I think, you know, look, it's early enough to your point. So let's see. He seems to have bounced back nicely mentally from the title loss as if it's never happened. That's a big that's a big comeback right there in itself. For sure.

By the way, what were you were you surprised when he I think it was the second or third round or so, when he ate that head kick and just kind of kept going? I was like, dude, his chin is fucking epic. And there were a few, you know, one-punch situations in rounds three through five where you're like, you know, a mere mortal at least goes down or gets finished when Costa sort of, you know know bites down and lets go and dude Vittori just sort of you know he kind of did the sloth thing and shook it off and kept going Luke damn damn bro the only thing he has to kind of figure out here a little bit for himself

is if you're still going to maintain a top spot in the middleweight division you know how much time is the UFC going to give you beating other contenders assuming that's what he keeps doing before they put him back in another title shot on some level if I'm him I'm not it's complicated it's very easy for me to say but maybe taking some 205 fights against lesser contenders or to bare minimum you want to stay active but here's the thing about Vittori's career BC I think you would probably agree with this he's got lots of experience at this point. I mean, even before this fight, his average fight time was over 15 minutes. So he's averaging well over a normal non-championship fight in its totality every time he goes out there. He's got the ring experience. If I'm him,

I'm slowing down the pace at which I'm taking fights, not substantially, but I'm going to slow down just a little bit so that I can really, really, really work on his craft. Because I do think if he rounds that corner, he's got all the other physical tools and multiple five-round fights, multiple five-round fights against top contenders with striking prowess, with grappling prowess, who are rangy, who are, you know, whatever, all the different types. He's already got that under his belt. Now is the time to go back to the lab and really, really work on the craft.

Take the fight when you're ready. No rush. You've already been to the mountaintop and seen it. When you go back the next time, make sure you're ready. Yeah, I'd also like to see him find a finishing angle, Luke, of some kind. He seems against the very elite to be tough enough to be there, good enough not to get sent packing early, but I kind of need him to develop a finishing move, if you will, Luke.

You get what I'm saying here. Whether that's a submission, whether that's a setup to a ground-and-pound finish, whether that's a calculated, you know, something. Like, I don't want to just see this guy be five round tough against the super elite. I want to see him in spots where he can win those fights. And look, you know, you could say, well, was Costa super elite in this one? And that's a good transitional point, Luke. It is. The last thing I would just say about that is you're right, though. You can tell his perspective. The fact that he is good but not like super

elite standing and then good on the ground but doesn't have super overwhelming ground and pound tells you that's his natural way in which he approaches fights either standing or on the ground he doesn't want to go too far with his offense yet so it just tells you that there's a comfortability he needs to lean into and get more with for his next fight to really change his fortunes but it was certainly a good win. So to your point, it brings us now to point number two, which is what about Paul Acosta? All eyes were kind of on him on this one in the sense that he was the one that missed weight and he was the one that had excuses.

And it turns out he has some kind of a left biceps injury that's going to have to be dealt with after the fact. And I have to say, BC, his overall effort was pretty commendable to the point where some people thought no point being taken from referee Herzog which we'll talk about in a second he might have had a case to win this fight what what would you say about him given everything including the unprofessional conduct of missing weight yeah I mean look this was a soap opera for a couple days there and I saw on the walk into the fight mixed with his walking into the cage and trying to get right in Vittori's face you know Luke for about 60

seconds I'm like maybe this is a calculated heel job maybe some of those whispers or conspiracy takes in the final day leading up to the fight of oh he only missed weight as like a you know an FU to the UFC to try to slowly become a heel and get out of his contract I mean there's there's a lot of that going around. Just like Luke, there's a lot of people that reach out to me and say, hey, if you guys bring up this red wine excuse one more time, that's obviously not what happened. He's using that as a cover. Look, we don't really know exactly what elements are there for truth, but I think that heel side of it for me left that as a pliable theory once this fight started. So here's what I saw from Costa in this fight. He's fucked up, Luke. He's not the same guy anymore. He's not fucked up enough to

where he can't knock out even an elite fighter and finish him because right now he seems to be leaning basically 100% on the idea that, well, I can knock out anybody and I'm both daring and have a strong enough chin that I could stand in there and take. So I think he's leaning way too heavily right now into that mode of his career already. When age-wise and physical and experience-wise, he still should be in that early prime of trying, in my eyes, to be the very best he can be. And a true complete fighter and a true title contender. I mean, he got really damn close entering that Adesanya fight. The way that he fought to me, Luke, was just a massive regression.

Even though it was fun, and even though he had moments where, again, if it wasn't a caveman like Vittori walking into that head kick, he may have won that fight, and we would just go, how much of all this is a red flag when he can still finish, guys? Look, Luke, he can still finish, guys. He has not lost his ability to pull the trigger or his ability to take big shots, fight through fatigue and keep fighting. I mean, he's a warrior, but he's screwed up right now, Luke. He is not wired correctly is what I'm trying to say. I don't know what it is. I don't know if it's his personal

life. I don't know what exactly it is, but what led up to both his bizarre performance against Adesanya, mixed with the very bizarre handling of his weight through this fight, I think only continued in the cage by the way that he fought Luke. Tell me if I'm wrong, but he shouldn't be fighting like this yet. This reckless, this just sort of animalistic. Yes, it's a part of what made him great, and how did he survive that Romero fight by being an absolute animal but Luke tell me if I'm wrong I saw a little bit of like I don't want to say desperation is it laziness I just saw an error in the cage that was like oh man if he goes on this road if he if he tries to be this guy every fight his prime is going to be short it's

going to be explosive but it's going to be short well i guess what i would ask you is you didn't see this before you know i saw i saw more of uh of an idea of like look this is who i am what makes me great is my danger and my ability to accrue danger and keep fighting but i saw it wrapped in a package of i'm gonna try to win this championship and be the best complete fighter i can be i saw a spirit in this fight that was more like eff it man let's go to war and we'll see what happens I don't think that I don't think that's been apples to apples this whole way do you disagree um I guess a little bit a little bit I mean I definitely see what you're talking about I think you're definitely on to something and like listen when someone misses weight it's usually like one of three or a combination of three different things. One, the fight was on late notice, so they just couldn't get down.

Two, they were just unprofessional and they didn't prepare properly and blah, blah, blah. And then three, they had an injury. Those are in the camp. Those are the three main culprits. He's claiming he had one, but it's like, I don't understand this shit anymore, man. Like if your injury is not enough to stop you from getting cleared medically to fight, can we fuck off with these excuses about missing weight? It's like, oh, I couldn't make weight, but I'm perfectly good enough to go fist fight another, you know, world-class fighter in a main event on television. It's like, well, dude, well, which is it, man? Which is it? And I get that threading that needle can sometimes be

a little bit more complicated than I'm giving it. I guess I'm just saying I'm a little bit fatigued with, oh, I couldn't make weight because I had an injury, but I'm perfectly good to fight. Like, something here just doesn't really add up. But as for the fight itself, I actually thought, dude, I thought he performed pretty well given his skill set. Now, what do I thought he performed pretty well given his skill set. Now,

what do I mean by that? Okay, you would probably agree of the two, Vittori and Costa, as hard of a hitter and a big, strong guy as Vittori is, Costa, those digs to the body with the left hook, the rear leg roundhouse to the middle up the gut was, mean he was punished I could not believe Vittori's ribs didn't get shattered from some of those shots he was just a fucking bulldozer with that and that head kick he landed it was nice he set it up with the with a jab and it looked like he was uh the kick was not going to come behind it and it did of course because he was setting it up like it looked pretty good but he only throws single shots. He doesn't really faint. He explodes into position. And so when he lands, dude, he lands with a ton of authority. He just is not a very, relative to even Vittori and especially Adesanya, he's just not a very

sophisticated striker. He's a punishing striker. He's an athletic striker. He's a good striker. He's not a bad striker, very much the imagination. But even Vittori was setting up better angles, and he was putting punches and strikes together, and he was going high-low and really kind of differentiating. Against Adesanya, it was men versus boys in terms of the thinking through the problems. To me, I just saw a lot of, not totally, but I saw a lot of what we had seen previously where he relies on big power to cause problems for opponents. They begin to panic. They begin to make bad decisions. They

double over, whatever the cause of the punishment may be. And then he builds on that. Adesanya made a point before they had fought. If you look at all of the knockouts that a guy like Costa has, they're not typically in the middle of the octagon. They're all against the fence because he's just pressuring these guys backwards. And then just the rain of the hurricane is so overwhelming they can't get right. Well, Vittori could just deal with it. And so what you saw was a very effective but limited skill set, just not really able to get himself over the hump, even though he's a big power puncher. But I have to say, while I don't think what he has is going to be a different, if he fought Adesanya a second

time, I didn't see anything there. Dude, he's a punishing striker. And for a lot of people, for the rest of the time, as long as he can do this, that's going to be a very effective way to win. He's going to win fights. He shouldn't, as a matter of of fact because he is so punishing with it i don't know that i saw a whole lot necessarily new well regardless of of who's right meaning is this who he's always been and just naturally who he is or or is there something majorly off and that's what these warning signs are seeing and he's sort of falling into all or nothing mode either way luke i agree with you he's going to beat an elite foe. He shouldn't, you know, he may end up fighting for a title, you know, sooner than later, if he can package

a couple of big wins. But I think what, what needed to be there to get the most out of him, I don't think it's there anymore. And I, and maybe that plays into some of the bizarre behavior. I mean, you know, I still don't know what to make exactly of the red wine story and the out ofanya situation. Was that just a mental just clam up? Did he freak himself out? I don't know what it was, but I don't think he's been the same since then. And I do give him a lot of credit, though, all things considered, for biting down and just going for it in this fight.

And maybe that's not a major removal from the strategy he normally uses. Look, go back and watch the Uriah Hall fight again. It's not that he's always leading on the cards and carrying out this strategic game plan. I don't know. I just saw a sharper, more focused. There was more of a plan overall. This was more of a caveman reaction, which, again, was great for theater. But, Luke, unless he figures out what's happening, I do feel like he's not necessarily the one driving this car at the moment,

if you get what I'm saying. I feel like there's something off, and he's chasing it to try to put it back together. If he can't hurt you with a big shot, here's what he banks on. He banks on one of those lefts to the liver. He banks on one of those big middle kicks or something. If he can't disrupt what you're doing and get you to panic or again physically fall over or just back up mentally with a big shot, people react poorly. They lose their bearing. And when they lose their bearing and he smells blood, he's all over them like white on rice.

The problem was Vittori just is not that guy. He's not going to back down from huge shots. He is durable as all hell. And so he just found himself in a position where all he could do was either more or less of what he was already doing. And more was certainly more dangerous but then a guy like vittori you know is clenching pressing him against the fence that's sort of a thing and so what he has to find is like better ways to set up his strikes he has to find

ways like what happens if i don't hurt a guy what do that what do i do then he just doesn't have and for example like vittori's takedowns in this fight were not super overwhelming or anything, but he at least had something of another gear to go to in a couple of the rounds. If a guy like Costa can't hurt you, does he ever go for the takedown and then work to get on top? It's just that gear or nothing. That's sort of the thing I'm pointing out. It's a skills issue to me. Do you want even more layers to that where okay he got to a point where he he needed a knockout and you could say okay well he's kind of fighting the whole fight like

he needed a knockout that's sort of who he is okay but do you need him then to try to lure vittori into a war when he realizes he's down on the cards and not just look for one punch because really the key for vittori winning this and i thought even with the point deduction you know he won it across the board, I think was having caveman fun action brawl responses and moments, but not letting it get completely out of hand is what won it for Vittori, right? He would go

back to his roots of jab, looking to set up the offense. I mean, do you think Costa just was thinking, I hit harder than this guy, I can get him into a war, and when I do, it's over. Because if it's that simple, he's still off, Luke. Yes, I think that's exactly what he thinks. I think what he thinks is, eventually, I'm going to hit you with something,

and you're going to react poorly to it, and then I'm just going to swarm you, and this will be over. Vittori is just a brick wall. It's just not going to happen against a guy like that. Let me ask you about that. Where were you on the point being taken? You brought it up. Daniel Cormier made a point to say that he thought Herzog was buying through the headlines.

I totally disagree. Where are you? No, I think if you watch an earlier fight to the evening where he took away a point. What was it? Was it the Alex Caceres fight? Yes, it was. Luke, he went up there against the fellow's name was. The Korean kid, yeah.

Seungwoo Choi. Seungwoo Choi. And Luke, I thought both were the same situation where, okay, was there a loud demonstrative set of warnings where you're like, okay, you know, one more no. But there was enough subtlety to the warnings where it's like, while I'd never want the referee to the con to the to the warnings where it's like i would while i'd never want the referee to become part of the story i never want him to lean on this you know i never

want there to be too many points than too little taken away i do like the fair and stern standing down on this we're like okay look these things change fights you know low blows you know fingers to the eye so how many times do you see in boxing and MMA, the multiple, you know, one more time, I'll take it away from you, ends up being four warnings before they finally do that. If you want to get rid of people leading with their fingers and putting them in some situations where you could get pokes, you act this stern. So overall, look, I thought it, it's sort of like a strike zone to me with an umpire in baseball. turn so overall look I thought it it's sort of like a strike zone to me and with an umpire in

baseball some are going to be so damned you know on the ball and call strikes for anything close and as a hitter in team you adjust to that if he wants to be a stricter referee I didn't think he went overboard at all I think that you know Costa needs to realize this I totally agree with that as well and also it's like when you go back and you listen to the fight there was a time he had poked Marvin Vittori in the eye I don't know if they stopped the action for it I don't recall that but I do recall him being like watch your fingers watch your fingers watch your fingers

then this happened they did have to stop the action he took a point dude what is the fucking problem everyone complains that these guys get poked in the eye not once not twice sometimes three times and even then they don't take a goddamn point. No, dude, this is a UFC main event. You guys are in the top five of this division.

You are by definition world-class elite talent. Close your fucking fingers after you get warned by the referee. End of story. End of story. I have zero problem with him taking the point. In fact, I commend him for just not tolerating this bullshit anymore. I'm tired of the fence grabs. Dude, every week when I go back and I look at the finishes,

especially if it's some kind of like Darce choke or something, these guys are putting their feet into the fence, putting their toes in there, which they're not supposed to, and then using that as leverage to get the win. Dude, I'm sick of this shit. Call it. Can I ask you two very difficult questions related to this,. Call it. Can I ask you two very difficult questions related to this, Luke?

Yes. Can I put you on the hot seat? Okay, difficult question number one. Is DC's over-aggressive take in that direction meant to take away from people remembering that he used eye pokes against Stipe to his advantage in more than one situation to sort of try to get away from being the eye poke guy?

I don't think to distract from that because he's retired and no one really cares anymore but I definitely feel like he wants a referee who has a laxer environment related to those kinds of concerns I'll put it that way and number two Luke regarding that uh point takeaway here uh yeah I forgot it already luke who cares right yeah last thing on this dana said costa has to go to 205 next i mean it's not even up for debate and then costa's like no i'm not leaving 185 until i get the belt where would you prefer to see him there i'll let them work out what's going to happen but would you prefer to see him at 205 or back at 185 no i prefer to see him taking his career serious at 185 and being a title contender and getting the most out of his prime before then transitioning full

time into, hey man, I hit harder than you, let's brawl. And that's fine. You can be that. It's going to be, you know, you're going to be here for a good time not a long time, but that's fine. Luke, the question I wanted to ask you real quick was the outlash against the point taken away how much of it subtly do you think is people saying maybe Herzog was penalizing

Costa for the whole weight situation? I think it's absurd. I was just going to say, literally, you have no, not you, but the proverbial you, you have no evidence for that. You're like, oh, Costa was in the headlines. He took a point quicker than other referees. There must be a connection. This is the most amateurish form of reasoning I think I've ever seen. Yeah. Plus, he did the same thing earlier against choice so yes good good call okay all right i wasted your time with

that yes no no it's okay all right so with that out of the way let's talk about the last emperor himself we go to bellator which aired on showtime from moscow russia on saturday and dude bc you and i and i'll i'll take i'll put and raise'll raise my hand, we have a whole segment on the show, Dead Wrong, where we have the listeners hold us to account, but sometimes we have to hold ourselves to account. Maybe, certainly I'll speak for myself here, maybe a bit too dismissive of Fedor, although I do recognize at 45, it's not altogether unfair to ask questions about when he's going to hang it up. But okay, he fights Timothy Johnson, and I can see why they picked Timothy Johnson, because the speed differential was out of control. Even at 45, Fedor is still lightning quick for a heavyweight.

Three-piece combo, sits Johnson down, head snaps back, referee calls it. All right, Fedor. While impressive, did he prove that he should keep going, or with such an impressive win is now the perfect time to say see you when i see you okay in reality yes reality is it's the perfect time because he just did this at home by the way but luke he's not gonna do it and we all know he's not gonna do it if anything this is gonna buy him more time and you know let's let me slip back into fan mode for a second good lord did he look great so if he

wants more time and he wants to fight somewhat flawed guys who are still dangerous yes there's a market for it and this is me being as anti-old guy fights as ever I'm still telling you that this version of him oh man I mean did things go perfectly god it was in his backyard and Johnson played to his style in that same 90 second window that you and I talked about where he's hella dangerous. Of course. So it was best case scenario, but you can't lie what you saw, Luke. He was in much better physical condition than we've seen in years. It wasn't that the pooch, the famous, you know, bare belly wasn't there. It was smaller. He was cut up more than normal. And Luke, the second we saw him enter that cage with that Stefan Bonner versus Anderson Silva tanning job,

we should have known something was up. That was like divorced dad, midlife crisis, gets the convertible with the ponytail. This was a wake-up call in which we found out afterwards that Fedor is actually very nervous about fighting at home, having media in his camp that much. He went on to say after the fight that he's like, I'd much rather go to the States to move on because of, you know, the nerves. I think that actually brought out the best of him to not want to get stopped in front

of his home country. I mean, it worked out perfectly, but here's the deeper thing we got. Let's be honest here. He's now nine and four in the last decade in this entire decade started with the loss to bigfoot silva and the dan hendel loss after it and it's we we say a lot you know okay he's had pockets of such dramatic reinvention but we know the reality he caught other faded fighters at the right time with the right punch similar to this fight i don't know he may be the opposite of every other fighter, Luke.

The more active he is, the fatter he is. But yet, taking some time off and changing up the circumstances here, it kind of got him to be like, you know, to find the love again. And he's only doing it still because he loves it. But I think he

really loved it again entering this fight. And I think he's, you know, his mojo is back after a performance like this, so he's the only person ever who the more they fight in a short period of time, the worse their conditioning gets. He almost needs this, you know, the random bunches of time off he gets to kind of remember that he's a badass, and that maybe he just needs to train a little harder, and he can keep this longevity going. So in the end, I give him a ton of respect for this matchmaking, because not only was it ballsy in the fact that it's a guy who could beat him, and if this fight hadn't ended in 90 seconds again,

who knows what it looks like after that, but also, like you laid out, it's kind of sneaky good matchmaking on his own part, having been in the corner of Valentin Moldavsky in the last Johnson fight to try to see what he needed to see dude I was I was impressed and by the way the tan thing I think people don't realize is he's consistently pretty tan not like this not like this was this was he was very bronze for this one he was the bronze bomber from Russia this time I I recognize but still he's usually a tanner than folks realize but okay you're right dude he looked a little bit better the time off I mean I you, hard to say competitively at 45,

what are the best ingredients for a guy at this stage. But you're right. I think the individual circumstances of performing in Moscow with the pressure that was there. On top of that, with the time off, he hadn't competed since the Rampage Jackson fight. Selecting Timothy Johnson. Because here's the thing.

You point out, dude, I was there at that fight with Bigfoot Silva. Bigfoot Silva was sort of a different threat on the ground at that time but you know he moved to mount on Fedor he was beating them like a drum you would just have to sort of wonder if Timothy Johnson would have gotten the takedown what would have happened but we just never got to that point and Fedor's speed was just unbelievable dude beating Timothy Johnson like Timothy Johnson's reinvent reinvention since going to Bellator is kind of real. Like, I take that seriously. I think he's a massively improved fighter.

I have a lot of respect for him. And this win should count as, like, a relevant heavyweight win. It's a good-ass win. It's a good-ass win. It's a great win. It's a really great win. See, and this is why, either way, I'm not saying there's no wrong answer and hardly that we have the right one. But, dude, you look that good at 45 against an opponent this credible. It's like, you know, can you really say, oh, now's the, now's the time to call it quits.

It is in the sense of, if you want to leave them wanting more now is the perfect time. But if you want to keep going based on the results, how on earth do you look at him in the face and say, you can't do it. He looked, he looked phenomenal, especially if they're equally clever with the next kind of matchmaking where you find someone who's talented and good and bigger, but maybe a little bit slower. There's some ways in which Fedor can be more nimble around them. Dude, at 45, it's the same formula he's been using since the Pride days, not for every opponent, but for a lot of them, just be a middleweight in a heavyweight division

and crack these guys with blistering hand speed good accuracy good timing he completely timed the jab and then the lead hook of timothy johnson i was i was impressed dude i was way too harsh about what this could have been i was i was way too dismissive fedor and i have to say this too well well don't luke don't beat yourself up you saw him against bay or you saw him against these. Like, a more elite guy should get to him. But he just looked better, dude. Everything about it, he was more on point. I mean, he doesn't do that level of three-punch combo to get a guy out of there in some of these other fights when he's fatter.

Dude, the spirit, something about him was just changed, man. He was just, it was different. I think you're onto something with that. The one thing I will say, though, is, and I think you would agree with this, we have been, yeah, you can see his physique there. He's always, you know, he's never going to have six-pack abs, but you're onto something with that. The one thing I will say, though, is, and I think you would agree with this, we have been, yeah, you can see his physique there. He's always, you know, he's never going to have six-pack abs, but you're right. He didn't look nearly as flabby as I'd seen him in other times. What I would say also is, dude, it's been nice to see this in different ways.

And this is one thing we give a ton of crap to UFC about, not because it's their fault per se, but because they're not designed for it. Where if you, this was a very credible win by Fader. What I mean to say is, we talked about it before, Anderson Silva just never really getting a proper exit. And people are trying to find this contortionist way to find a fight for Nick Diaz where he can both win and look good and get somebody relevant. It's quite difficult because, dude, the UFC just features, by and large, the very best at their very best at the moment. And so when you're outside of those circumstances, they don't really know what to do with you.

Beltor has been a little bit more nimble on both ends, right? Where they can get someone like an AJ McKee and give him all of his fights up until he's a title contender. And also, while this was a very credible win, they can give someone who's a little bit older a softer landing. In either case, what I wanted to say was it's nice to see Fedor get a win like this, where he not only beats someone relevant, but he looked fucking awesome doing it at age 45. It felt really good, didn't it?

I mean, did it feel better than Anderson Silva outboxing Chavez Jr.? That was weird and different, but it felt really good. And by the way, as a fan, it's like, look, you and I become so jaded i mean we're fans obviously but we're like we're journalist fans and that becomes jading it becomes well this is my job and you know something you don't always reconnect that's why i like resume review because it reminds me re-watching some of these older fights the emotions i had at the time which was probably more purer and like the fan side of it. But yet I love cracking that hardcore jaded shell and have a reason to fan cheer again. And this was that. Luke, I wanted to ask you about Fedor's physique because I remember, you know, as far back as like 2009, 2010 through the losses to, you know,

to Verdum and then the big foot one saying, well, what about if he just got in shape? And of course, you're always going to get people saying two things. One, well, that's how Fedor has always generally looked. And two, you could say as a smaller heavyweight, does he like an extra amount of size to not be handled on the ground? I don't know. Tyson Fury carries more weight than you would think would be necessary, yet he uses it to his advantage. What do you think about the idea of what if Fedor either historically or even right now just got into really good freaking shape could it be a dramatic difference in what we see I don't tend to think he's ever been out of shape out of shape um like unprofessionally out of shape

this one looked better I agree I mean he's 45 I still think as good as he looked and as as impressive as it was and all the the blessings and nice things we can say about him, we just need to be cognizant of the fact that I do think this was something of a favorable matchup that I didn't quite understand until I saw it play out. But I think they saw it ahead of time. And then also, you know, individual circumstances being what they are. It would be wrong to conclude that like, oh, what he really needs is just to run more. I mean, he needs a little bit of girth

to be able to handle the size of his opponents, but he needs to be a little bit slender to maintain the speed advantages. Sometimes he's gotten that calibration wrong. He dialed it in this time, but even with that, we just have to have managed expectations. I mean, I think that's sort of the joy of it all, right?

You have managed expectations, like what can Fedor really do at 45? And I still think his next fight, he might go back to turning back into a pumpkin. But for this one, dude, he was Cinderella at the ball. Jesus Christ, he looked great. So take it for what it is this time, but let's not get too, too crazy about it. All right, matchmaking Monday. Match my what?

Luke, tell me if you hate this. You ready for this? All right. We're going to go to the States. We're going to go to Chicago where Fedor loves to fight in, loves to support, and we do Fedor against Gegard Mousasi, legend versus legend at heavyweight. Come on.

Come on. Come on, bro. Come on. You like it, Mousasi? You do? That's not my favorite. come on come on come on bro come on you likey you like the sauce you do that's not my favorite i was hoping you would say a rematch with verdum i wonder if that might be a little bit different i mean that's cool run that one back that's that's cool okay but don't you want to if he i don't know he's got more juice in these big fights more than i am he's got more juice than we thought, but yet it's still fool's gold.

Yep. All things considered, the homecoming, he was in better shape than normal. It's all fool's gold, right? Perfect opponent, perfect way it played out. It just kind of makes me want to say, okay, is the best way to get great entertainment from him, putting him in a De La Hoya versus Pacquiao type matchup. Put him in one where it him in a you know de la jolla versus pacquiao type matchup put him in one where it's like you know he either he succumbs to the speed and technique of a smaller

in their prime guy or he overwhelms them with strength it's an interesting i don't know that's interesting theater look i get dan hendo vibes on this one that like all the advantages conferred on him by being at heavyweight would somewhat be taken away when you fight a guy like musasi but i think most i think a lot of people would like it I'll put it that way all right give me a couple matchups that would move you because you know I'm gonna say Anderson Silva you know that's you know you know Silva for sure if the price tag can be afforded I like a JDS fight I think at this stage that makes sense a Verdum rematch I like dude they could do Josh Barnett I think that would be a good fight, honestly. I was surprised Josh Barnett

didn't get the call to begin with, to be honest with you, but yeah, I think those are all... And dude, Josh Barnett, isn't he under fucking Bellator's roster? You know, if he's not fighting Vader, who's he supposed to... I just don't understand what's happening there, so that's

who I would go with. If they brought back Bigfoot Silva for a rematch, that would that's who i would go with if they brought back bigfoot silva for a rematch that would be uh dude he shouldn't be he should that would be promotional uh what do you call that malpractice yeah there you go all right let's go to number four here bc before we get to the boxing side of things here we did have these two cards we had the bellator card of course early on saturday afternoon ish and then we had uf the same time, actually. They were both pretty early. Give me somebody else on either card that stood out to you. Luke, this fella, Anatoly Tokov, the Bellator middleweight who fought in Russia here.

Real fat ass, that guy. Dude, that guy is yoked as shit, first of all. But second of all, Luke, he's got a ridiculously good record. And was he the one who had visa issues, which has prevented him in the past from fighting globally? I'm not sure if I've got that correctly, but he went in there against countrymen and former training partner, Sharaf Davlat Muradov. Damn, I nailed that, Luke.

You know, sometimes you got to just, you know, sometimes you got to celebrate the small victories, right? And Luke, dude, he looks like a title contender right freaking now. I know i know it ended up being what like a weird split decision that didn't make a ton of sense to be but uh i thought he dominated his wrestling is aggressive as shit the trip takedowns uh the the the body the the the clean punching it's sort of like where has he been all my life luke where has he been all my life he looked good Where has he been all my life? He looked good. He is obviously yoked as shit. I couldn't believe how in shape he was. I did not...

I thought he was very good very early. I thought by the third round, it was a little bit... I want to call it a donk fest. That's not fair. The fight didn't get better as it went longer. How about that? Is that fair?

Do you put him in the same skill set though as like the austin vanderfords who has next at musashi's middleweight title yes yes i do i think he is capable of beating very good fighters in that division in that organization yes i agree i agree with your overall sentiment that tokov is a revelation for sure um but um i didn't think the fight was like super exceptional that makes sense okay that's fair luke either way uh you know we got to give scott coker this credit man is he finding gems from the smash factory and putting them in positions where they can shine themselves up and i love where that's going the other quick shout out luke because i don't want to forget it is i gotta give blue bruce leroy Caceres, a ton of credit for that featherweight win. Luke, five in a row in this one.

He took damage early against Sung Woo Choi, and it was the point takeaway from Jason Herzog that was big, not for the scoring in the end because it was a submission, but it gave Alex Caceres a lot of time to recover, and I thought that was fair from the referee in that spot. Maybe you could say the combination of the length of time and the point being taken away is strict but he did warn him earlier and when Caceres realized okay I gotta go now he went and dude that's a he's look he was a he was like a gatekeeper slash fun name and now he's turning that corner back into real fighter this was a good performance in the

end um five in a row at ufc level is hard to argue with other than he's not been fighting the very best that ufc has to offer but he is slowly but surely making a lot less mistakes about his own skill set when to go when to break where to put the fight. He's just making better decisions, I guess is what I would say, and that's typically the mark of fight IQ. Some guys pick it up quickly, some guys take it a little bit longer, but it seems like he's finally coming around and he's showing a better demonstration of what he's capable of. I still have managed expectations about how far that actually goes,

but you've got to give credit where credit is due. Five wins in a row, including this one by finish. Yeah, I'm not sold. They don't hand you that. I'm not fully sold did get dropped and he got you know lit up by some other punches but that i mean i don't know the way he put that together you're sort of like okay let's prove it now prove it all night all right fair enough and well by the way i want to give a shot on extra credit we'll go over some of these in a little bit greater detail after this podcast is over i'll go with saeed soma bc who didn't blow me away by any stretch of the imagination.

I didn't come out thinking like, oh my God, he's the next world beater. But I was kind of impressed by what he was able to do. He had a very tentative first round, no doubt about it. But by the second round, he found that lead calf kick, and he was tearing Minnikov up by it. I agreed with Big John's scorecard, who had first round for Minnikov, second round for Soma. Now, unfortunately, we didn't get the conclusion of the third round because the finger of Minnikov got dislocated,

and by the time he popped it back in, it was too late or whatever had happened to it. But dude, by the third round, you could make a case that Soma was winning that fight, maybe, and was on his way to beating Minnikov. Not in the most... Again, it wasn't super amazingly detailed, but he knew when to press the gas, when to press the brakes.

He found that calf kick. He went back to it. His movement was good. He was smaller for the weight class, but nimble as well. I still think he's got a lot of experience that he needs, but as they were saying on the broadcast, you know, it's hard to find guys who are going to travel to Moscow to fight Minnikoff, and he was up for it. Again, the win, maybe you could run this fight back and it'd be a little bit different if the if the finger doesn't pop out the next time

but I don't know there was enough there from him given what he's already showed and what he showed here for me to say this guy can keep going he's got he's got work to do there might be something there with Sayid Soma I was I was pleasantly surprised by this there might be there might be it's hard because you know the whole question of

the finger was broken and kind of dislodged but they wanted to just kind of stick it back in and keep fighting. Should he be allowed or should that be an instant stoppage and a TKO defeat? In this case they went the safer route but I feel like Minnikoff was going to win a close decision and he looked rusty but

for being two years off, Minnikoff still can get people the hell out of there. I think what Soma showed was collectively toughness to not get sent to hell, but really great fighter IQ. Now, Luke, he's really got, like, white belt striking. He's got to really step into that and improve. But he used his striking smartly to be credible enough to set up what he was doing with the kicks

and the threat of bringing it to the ground. So overall, it was sort of like, okay, you kind of stole this win, but it does show that you're going in the right direction. So it was a ballsy effort. It was a sneaky win, Luke. I don't know if that fight should have been stopped. What about you? I mean, I guess it's just the rules.

But here's my point. At heavyweight, he's 29. So, like, am I saying he's great now? No, I'm not saying that. But at 29, if you can muster your skills enough to have that kind of performance against that kind of an opponent, let's give this guy a few years and see where things go. He actually might turn out to be something kind of interesting. Uh, work, work in progress is what I'm describing him as very much work. But, um, I don't know. I saw a little bit there. I was like, okay,

you definitely beat my expectations for this one and i they weren't they weren't so low before this was this was an interesting performance for sure yes what about the damn stoppage i didn't i mean the rules are the rules right like have you ever dislocated your finger or toe i mean i get like we've seen people fight through certain breaks to their hand or to their arm I get if a guy's arm is dangling stop that shit but on a lower level break slash injury do you feel fighters should be allowed to fight through that what do you think in terms of morality and ethics and all that I think that if you can weasel it through you should be able to so I forget which

fight it was it may have been the Douglas Lima fight one of the other ones that Ben Askren had. Ben Askren did a pilot once with Nate Quarry. Nate Quarry, after the show we did with Craig Hart and MMA Uncensored Live, he pitched Spike for a second show where he would go through fighters, film with that fighter, break it down, and blah blah blah

and I recall there was one moment where one of the toes of Ben Askren came out of its proper position, and it was between rounds. So between rounds, he was able to pop it back in and then keep going. Now, that's a little bit fortuitous that it happened that way. So in that case, I don't have a problem with it. I think if your finger pops out and you can quickly adjust it, then it should be fine.

But if you're making a fist and you've got one finger going up and you can't fix it and you're constantly adjusting it, dude, the ref has to make a call. You got to make it easy on the refs. You got to make them go away and say, okay, you're fine. Okay. But you have to kind of do it quickly. He couldn't really do it. And eventually I saw him pop it back in. I've dislocated my toe as well. You have to kind of pick it up, rotate it around and let it go. And honestly, it literally snaps back into position. And then, you know, it might hurt later in the day, but it's more or less fine. fine he got to that he just got to it a little bit too slow so it's unfortunate it's not a uniform rule but i guess i don't have a major problem if you can't immediately fix that thing um you i think yeah i mean i get it if it's dingling if it's like this

luke right if it's like this then then fuck off right oh look real quickly i think minikov would send fedor to a deep dark retirement bed yes that's the kind of fight that i would not imagine would okay what about saeed soma versus fedor that's an interesting who cares right i mean soma is interesting i mean it is who cares but it's a style clash luke okay nah dude put him in there with a fucking name bro put him in there with a name even if it's, dude. Put him in there with a fucking name, bro. Put him in there with a name. Even if it's an older name. Put him in there with a name.

All right. Last but not least, BC, I rewatched this fight this morning because I just couldn't believe it. Let's talk about boxing very quickly. There was one big bout over the weekend. It aired on ESPN. And it was sensational. We've been waiting for this guy to kind of show up and show us what we knew was kind of there or thought was kind of there. Well, now we know it's there, and there's just no denying it.

Shakur Stevenson beat the brakes off Jamel Herring. I'm not sure if he won a round. That jab was pumping from the first round on. Stevenson never was in trouble in this bout. I'm not sure he ever got hit clean except for a couple of jabs. B.C., was this what you have been waiting for from shakur stevenson yeah yeah my boy is all growns up as they used to say luke uh wow yeah this is what we've been waiting for so this is where okay look when timothy bradley makes a public criticism as a pundit does it have more

respect to everyone than like you and i because he's an ex-fighter absolutely but i like that we respect people like us who have that form and go after it and say it. And Bradley, after that last fight against Jeremiah Nakantilla, in which Stevenson, you know, faced some of that power and kind of started going the other direction and didn't go for the finish and was happy to just get a boring decision, Tim Bradley came out and was like, you're not going to be a star unless you go after it and get it. I love that Shakur Stevenson took that to heart, Luke,

and that he went back into the lab and was like, yeah, I could and should be so much better. And once he crossed that threshold, he still didn't put himself in too many dangerous positions, but he just had the mentality of a finisher. And I didn't even think he was necessarily going for the finish. What I mean by that is I never thought he was actually setting Herring up for the knockout. I just felt like he believed if he comes out there with that posture, he's going to land so much damage that he's going to end up stopping Herring anyway. And that's what happened, Luke.

This was such a good performance that I get people going, man, with the thoroughness and the unexpected just dominance of this, it's very comparative to Floyd Mayweather against Diego Corrales. I hear a lot of people saying that. I don't love that comparison because as much as I respect Herring and as much as he was a respected champion, he's not as good as Corrales was at that time of that loss. But Luke, let me make a different Floyd comparison.

This ended up looking a lot like Floyd Mayweather versus Arturo Gatti, which was a pay-per-view that people wanted to talk themselves into thinking it could be competitive. And Floyd just mopped the floor with Gotti. Shakur Stevenson mopped the floor with Jamel Herring here. Maybe it's that lack of top-end power was the only thing that prevented this from being a cleaner and earlier stoppage. And I do think that's real. I think like Floyd Mayweather, the more Shakur Stevenson rises in weight, he's going to always have to overcome that thing that he's not a big puncher, but Luke,

he is so damn skilled. And when he acts the part as the aggressor, that speed is just sublime. He can get off combinations and maybe he shouldn't. And what I love most about this victory top to bottom is he didn't run and circle away and do things that he could have done by default. Even when he had the fight in hand, he fought at close range, again, like a young pretty boy Floyd.

And this was brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. I mean, he kicked the shit out of him, Luke. And you don't always see that at the super elite level. No, this was not very close. From the first round on you knew Herring was in trouble I did the ease with what you know what blew me away was Stevenson to your point he wasn't standing far outside he was just and I do mean just outside the hooking range

of Herring and he would just constantly get out of the way and so the punches were always missing or blocked or just barely landing on Stevenson and meanwhile he was landing with absolute clean authority over and over hooking around the gloves of Herring going to the body he was backing Herring up constantly he was making him circle into traps dude this he was just literally he was better everywhere even on the inside when they fought later in that fight because it kind of slowed down a little bit after like the seventh or eighth or whatever and they were kind of fighting on the inside even on the inside, when they fought later in that fight, because it kind of slowed down a little bit after the 7th or 8th or whatever, and they were kind of fighting on the inside. Even on the inside, that wasn't the best that I thought Stevenson looked, but even there, he was doing the better work of the two. Jamel Herring really, for the most part, never had a chance in this contest. So it leads me to the second question here.

What kind of fight would you want to see next from Stevenson? Is it the one that he suggested for himself? What makes sense at this point? What was the one that he suggested, just so I'm aware, Luke? Jojo. Jojo Diaz, which would be interesting. That would also be a unification fight. That's the question, is what's next?

How quickly do we enter him into that conversation, Luke, that I've seemingly been the only one that has been with those, not four kings, but four princes, as Karen Mulvaney likes to say, those big four names at lightweight. Is it time for Stevenson, who just became a second champion in as many divisions, now at 130, to move up to lightweight to really see how great he could be? Could he be the bridge between making some of these fights between Devin Haney, Ryan Garcia,

Teofimo, Lopez, Gervonta that we just can't seem to make because of boxing politics. I don't know. But if top rank wants to keep him right now at 130, Luke, the fight to make before and the fight still to make even bigger than Jojo Diaz is Oscar Valdez, who knocked out Miguel Burchell, then defended this title under the PED accusations. And look, that fight at 130 is just such a perfect style contrast. I mean, that's going to be potentially Shakur's like Floyd Mayweather versus Diego Corrales moment, where you're in there against a guy who can do some damage to you. Can you go and do the same performance that you did against Jamal Herring against them? I would say it's more likely that top rank wants to go in that direction

than maybe even Herring does, because, Luke, I would favor Herring to do some things to Oscar Valdez and Oscar Valdez is great right I I I'm that high on Shakur I don't know my question to you right now as we look to the future is more like this am I as high as I should be should I be higher am I too high Luke look into my eyes am I too high right now do you think Shakur Stevenson could go in there against the elite lightweights right now and swim in that water because of how freaking fast, smart, and sublime he is? Yes. Yes, I do. I think he is extremely skilled and extremely talented.

I do worry about, do you know what size gloves they were wearing? Because they seemed rather large. I don't know what they were using for the fight itself. But in either case, dude, he's just as talented as those guys, if not more. I do worry about the power, and I do worry about a little bit the size. At 135 for him, but whether that's where he can get his optimal amount of work, we'll only have to see. But if you're asking asking me do i think he is as talented or more talented than some of the four princes probably i do think that he is i think he is absolutely in that conversation it's just

it's a question of exactly how he would fit um with some of the larger size considerations here's what's interesting i don't want to say he's a young young Floyd Mayweather because that would take into the whole account of Floyd. And I don't think he's a young money Mayweather. No, he's gonna have to prove that. Move up in weight and still be the, you know, be able to take on these bigger, more dangerous guys and just, you know, out thrill and slick them. But he's a, he's a southpaw, young, pretty boy Floyd right now.

But Luke, if he's going to have success at 135, 140 and 147 long range do you think he's gonna have to rely exclusively on like a Pernell Whitaker defensive base jab style and that's it Jesus that's a little hard to say I mean I didn't see him as especially defensive in this one I just he was like pretty boy I mean he brought it dude it, dude. He brought it. But this is 130. This is 130. I'm talking about upstairs. I'll say this. For me, maybe other people in the boxing community have a better and more nuanced opinion. For me, it's a little too early to tell.

I just feel like the way in which he was able to find openings and range. And, dude, he did it quickly, right? That was the part. It didn't take him a few rounds to figure herring out it took him like 30 seconds or maybe a minute or something and he immediately knew where he needed to be and he just rode that shit out for the rest of the fight for the most part again there's a little bit of inside fighting later dude you can have that kind of range management that quickly holy crap dude like you going to be really good even up a weight class.

But the size, that could get interesting for me. That's the part where I just, can he hurt a guy at 135 in the way that he needs to? You know? It's going to be very interesting when he moves up and when he faces those punchers and then we'll see who he really is. Right now, though, damn. And I know people say, you you know from ticket sales to everything you know maybe he's not the breakout star they thought he could be i wouldn't even worry about that i

think he's going to become a star enough on his own just by his ability but he's still pretty interesting in terms of the other side of it the commercial side just 24 i know he's had some outside the ring problems but he seems to put them behind him and luke you know he's named after tupac i mean that could be worse he's a Southpaw and he's brash on the microphone. Although I did like him hearing Terrence Crawford, the whole, you know, they had to put their friendship on hold and pretend they weren't really friends. Everybody's loving again. Could you, I mean, Luke, him hanging out every day with Bud Crawford, that's like the perfect sort of

like apprenticeship to like take over the sport, right? Take over the sport seems a little bit grand right on a pound for pound level i'm telling you shakur steven's going to be the pound for pound king a couple years that's what i'm telling you look okay wow well that's a bold claim we'll have to see that shit but certainly he got right that on the wall in a prison somewhere please yes i want that on the record on the darkest record on the With that in mind, we no longer ask each other questions, BC. It's time for the audience to ask us questions. It's time for DMs from the dogs.

Yeah, hee-haw. All right, hee-haw. Boy, look at that guy. I mean, just the joie de vivre of this guy today. Look at him. I got testicles on my damn hat. All right, here we go. From AtTcaro39, damn hat all right here we go from at t caro 39 should there be a universal rule for ufc

that enforces a fighter to move up a weight class if they miss weight more than once automatic no i don't like that no there's got to be layers to this like yeah this this can be a passionate debate luke but i think there's got to be layers to this discussion. I do like, I mean, obviously there's some situations that should have the ability to be, to have an asterisk added. But in general, I love this rule, Luke, and I think there should be a less than too much

sort of hook on this. If you consistently can't prove that you can't make it, go be healthy. Because I got a lot of people saying, Luke, was this't prove that you can't make it go be healthy because i got a lot of people saying luke was this fight so much fun on saturday because it was at 205 because they didn't have to cut weight as much because they were allowed to be their natural selves i got a lot of dms asking that i wish i could say their names to give them credit here but who the hell cares at the end of the day it's about the hot take luke so uh hot take what do you got i mean if they did it it'd be

I wouldn't be the end of the world but like I would want carve outs like if you miss two in a row but or not two in a row but two two let's say you miss weight twice over the course of however many fights but number one like what does that mean like what if you've had 30 fights and you miss two times like you're supposed to go of a weight class at that point that seems a little insane right number one number two what if you took one of those fights on, like, a week's notice, and you just couldn't make weight? Like, should that count as well? Like, just saying if you miss it more than once, automatically you should go up.

I understand the spirit of what they're saying. So I guess I would say is if you could have a more carefully crafted language and carve-outs for it, I do agree that if you're just a big motherfucker and you're trying to squeeze into a weight class, that's too small for you and you do it twice, you know, it's a short succession. Yeah. In that case, you probably should go up, but I can imagine a number of scenarios where just missing it more than once would not be enough good reason to push someone, especially up 20 pounds, 10 pounds is whatever, 20 fucking pounds. That's a lot man

yeah it's like i used to play rec basketball in high school luke and they had like an a squad and a b squad and some teams would try to be like cheeky and put really good players on the b squad and then eventually the other coaches would like get on like a conference call and they'd they'd ban people from the b squad you know we may have to ban you from that look it's interesting this weight debate is it's like the abortion debate there's so many layers to it it gets very hairy i don't want to know your politics or your religion just in case you were wondering at nosebleed seating how would you rank jason herzog among current active referees dude didn't he just take a make a leap yesterday or saturday he kind of made a leap luke he's been good for a long time bellator you it's funny bellator used him long

before ufc ever really called him up all that often i think ufc got wise to the fact that he's very good he's among the best if not the best i think jason herzog is great um arash markazi was covering a uh a ufc like referee training story for espn a couple years back and uh jason herzog was there and like Rashad or I'm not Rashad uh Arash went to the mat to roll and like they were showing him some things and Herzog broke his rib dude broke Arash's rib yeah that's no nonsense right there all right I don't know I'm not saying it was someone else did someone else break the ribbon write the story and then Arash took that and wrote it or oh that I take the risk? I'm not accepting that. It's my friend.

I'm not accepting those words right now. I'm sorry. All right? You're going to have to F off with that. Hashtag plagiarist. Okay. I will. Wow.

All right. I'm not sure if he smells like women in hooch though, like the real no nonsense. But yes, Luke, Herzog operating. Okay, let's right now. Who's the guy? It's been Herb Dean for a long time. I thought Mark Goddard has entered into that conversation for lately. Who's the pound for pound best of the guy? It's been Herb Dean for a long time. I thought Mark Goddard has entered into that conversation for lately. Who's the pound-for-pound best of the moment?

The guy you feel most trusted with in a super big UFC pay-per-view main event? Probably Herzog. Probably. I think Mike Beltran is pretty good. So has our guy ever recovered from the weed in the jail time? What's our guy's name? The guy from... Oh, Rosenthal?

Yeah, from Lesnar Carwin. He did a fantastic job. I've been trying to get an interview with him for years. He just no-sells it every time. I saw him back after a while, but then I haven't seen him since. Yeah, I feel like it's been a while. I want to put him in there because I respect his game when he's at his

best, but I haven't seen him in a while. I don't think Mike Beltran's there. He's getting better. I don't think he's there yet. I don't mean to turn this as a referendum of who's good or who's bad but yes Jason Herzog very good Luke very good all right from at travis.whitney69 Luke how did you enjoy the rugby over the weekend uh how about the haka dude the rugby was great I mean especially if you were a fan of the the New Zealand, Jesus Christ, they beat the fuck out of the Americans. I mean, it wasn't even close. But, dude, it was great, man.

Like, you know, listen, I'm not one of these guys who's like, you should like rugby more than American football. I like American football better because, well, I'm American. But, dude, rugby's a fucking sweet-ass game. People ask me why I watch it because it's fun as shit. And here's the other part. Like, this was the A—well, started out as the A squad of the All Blacks. They don't come to the United States all that often. You don't get to see this high level of version of the game

in front of you very often. Although my dad complained about the per person $150 seats that I purchased, which, you know, I was just overjoyed to hear his complaints, let me assure you. I mean, I'm like, are you out of your fucking mind? I asked him, I was like, what did you think about the hawk after we watched it and he goes yeah it's pretty far away probably better to watch on tv i'm like you know what i'd love to do with mk

crammer's rolling is put you and your dad in the same room but have it be like one of those from a movie police interrogation rooms right where they were like we're watching behind the glass with the cameras and then we'll play um in the Cradle by Harry Chapin and then just film both of you. Will you break down and hug at the end, or will you just be a total standoff of, like, I hate you? No, I don't hate my father, but I just didn't have a great weekend after he complained about everything that we did.

And we did it for him because my dad played rugby in college and then a little while after it. And so he loves it. He loves it. And so I was like, oh, you get a chance to watch the Americans. This was like a World Cup qualifier too, I think, or something pretty close. Anyway, you don't get a chance to watch this version of the All Blacks play in full-on rugby, not like rugby sevens. And they beat the absolute fuck out of us.

But I really enjoyed it. And I told you before the show, the Kiwis, there was, I got to, this was a bit of a big deal because we saw, like, license plates from, like, Montreal, California, Alaska. There were Kiwis from all over the country who were here trying to watch this game. They were the majority of the supporters there by far, and they were all very friendly.

They were not a rowdy bunch whatsoever they were they were celebratory but not rowdy and then when i posted some of the videos or whatever from the weekend a bunch of them dm me and they were all so friendly so kind i i would go back in an instant if they were ever here again i really enjoyed it so shouts to everyone who made it sometimes that sounds like a great event and actually and and I met some MK fans as well. I got recognized when I was there. Oh, shit. I was just going to put a button, Luke, on the other conversation and say,

sometimes the lane to get dad's attention is not the road you want to go, but I'll help you with this. What about next week in Las Vegas for the Canelo fight? You and I, first we stop at High Rollers. We sample the gimmicks, support the guys. Say, any, any Jujutsu experts want to just come with us? We've got a quick check-in on this rental property guy, guy not paying his rent on time or whatever. And Luke, we go in there with the High Rollers crew and they take that, that renter, they take them right down and stretch them, Luke. And then we get like a video of the renter, like,

you know, tapping out and, and you all, I'll never miss pay my rent again mr thomas dude your dad would be so fucking proud of you i mean we should do this dude no he wouldn't he would call the cops on me first but also it's not it's not residential it's commercial property that someone has failed to pay their uh we could probably beat up a janitor at least i mean come on sorry sir you have to get this it's just uh i need my dad to love me uh okay from this is a stupid question from jose young's i mean why today why did the team even select this it's not even a good zing not cool not cool yeah why does luke use gloves to lift weights ha ha ha of course i don't i like Jose Youngs, but this question sucks balls. Can we move on? Do you think Jose Youngs has as good a win-loss record as his handsy as Mike Bone? He probably should be.

No, I don't think so. But Mike Boner has, like, you know, he's sort of zombie-walked into a few opportunities. It was outside of his weight class, I think. See, if Youngs looks himself in the mirror at the end of the day and says, I'm letting Mike Bone, like, you know, out here out here you know he's stealing everything i work for and like wakes up to this he could probably go on an uncle pepe like run like sort of like when manny ramirez joined the dodgers and hit like 900 for that stretch i could see that happening no mma fighting gives him too much work to party um all right from at db underscore scott underscore outlaw now this question is good

what are your favorite halloween candies all right bc give me breaking news on this luke okay normally what's my favorite halloween candy i'm a chocolate and peanut butter guy so you know as basic as peanut butter cups or if you can go next level and go with the uh what's the damn one that hershey makes the uh the chocolate peanut butter the best candy bar in the world what's it called the damn uh snickers Hershey makes? The chocolate and peanut butter. The best candy bar in the world. What's it called, Luke? The damn... Snickers? No, the one with the chocolate and the peanut butter. It's an orange wrapper.

Oh, Reese's? Yeah, yeah. What's that one? I said Hershey. I meant Reese's. What's that one that they... So there's Reese's Pieces, but then there's Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. No, no.

The damn bar, Luke. The chocolate bar with the peanut butter and the chocolate that Reese's makes. It's an orange package, and it's the best candy bar of all time you know the one I'm talking about Luke I don't actually it's so good I can't remember what you're gonna call it is it what you're gonna call it no Luke it's not it's not this is driving me crazy here but uh what's it called the fast break Luke fast break by oh I have had fast break yes it is yes so that shit's the absolute best but let me tell you this luke i i ran over to the walgreens yesterday to get some candy for the family to what for some like movie watching and survivor watching as a family you know good wholesome shit and uh to the

dismay of my family i bought the new you know candy corns made by that company brocks you know like the best like it's candy corn shit but but the best version comes from them, the highest end. I actually like candy corns, but yes, go ahead. I mean, it's crack cocaine, right? They have the ultimate crack cocaine. Brock's now has Thanksgiving dinner flavored candy corn, which basically means that every single one has a different flavor. Some taste like vegetables.

Some taste like meat. Some taste like ice cream. Some taste like vegetable. Some tastes like meat. Some tastes like ice cream. Some tastes like you know, apple sauce. Like it's dude, across the board, it's the most bizarre. There's like, there's a party in your mouth. You just don't know if you invited those people. It's sort of like the party in Weird Science where those guys come on like the motorcycles

just shit. How do we get these guys out of our fucking house? You know what I mean? Like that's what it's like in your mouth. Yeah, at the end of it, you're like I know I shouldn't be here. It's sort of like, you know what i mean like that's what it's like in your mouth yeah at the end of it you're like i know i shouldn't be here it's sort of like you know i'm gonna catch an std hopefully just herpes right hopefully like i can keep going on if it's just that right that's what it's like eating this luke it is it is whoever whatever chemist came up with this crack shit that's gonna kill us it is some thoughtful next level thinking okay this is like willy wonka shit right what what candies do you not like for halloween bro you cannot no sell that story and not react to it

would you be willing to try this yo it's a whole damn meal they got i would try it but it sounds like ass oh violence i would try it i would try it all right all right go ahead ask your question luke what do you got no No, what I'm saying. What are the ones when you sort it, are you like trash? Oh, yeah. Baby Ruth, Butterfinger to me are trash. Oh, my God. You are a fucking Osama bin Campbell.

You are so wrong about that. What else? So I like some bad shit. I like Mounds and Almond Joy, although they were made in my town growing up. How do you like Mounds and Almond Joy more than Baby Ruth and butterfinger yeah i do any sense i like uh i i you know like like a like if you got like a frozen mary jane from an old lady those actually those actually turn out well in the end luke um what do i throw out well i throw out the popcorn ball first of all well look dude butterfingers gross so you gotta you gotta get rid of that right away

okay butterfingers great but okay i don't know i don't I'm not throwing out too much else what do you not like Luke all right I mean I'm not the guy I'm not gonna go to the mat for it I don't like love it uh but I don't hate candy corn like other people hate candy corn like everyone's like oh I don't love candy corn I'm like bitch it's pure sugar what is there not to like like shut the fuck up you obviously like you're just doing a bit so number one there's that number two reese's is your apex predator every time either reese's pieces or the peanut butter cups or just do the fast break can you put some respect fast break is fast break is great i love that as well it's like it's a it's a sex bar luke uh baby ruth is a fucking home run every single time yeah i can't believe that the ones i I'm fucking, like, I'm not a big, like, sprees.

Oh, no. Here's where I was going to separate you. On the fruit side, in the sprees, Skittles, Starburst category, like, Mambos, like, I am all in on that. I'm not in on, like, gumdrops, jelly beans, you know, like, dots, like, that kind of bullshit. Get that shit away. I like that okay okay i'm not as out on it as you oh like good and fruity or the other guy no the the black good and plenty yeah good those people that's that's where i like i'll light that shot of fire luke okay uh my old

producer marissa used to hate reese's pieces and i was like dude how the fuck is that our business peanut butter cups i'm like how do you not like chocolate and peanut butter? And she's like, I don't like peanut butter. I'm like, right, you deserve to go to Guantanamo Bay for that take. I just want to be very clear about that. Luke, do you agree that the- I do like Starburst. I do like Skittles, but if I'm going to get Skittles for Halloween,

I want the exotically flavored kind, not traditional. Oh, I always want the exotically flavored. You know, that tropical, I mean, I'm a wild berry guy, but that tropical bag has been underrated for years the your warheads are decent core dog cory maniche driving in here with uh you know i'm down for that shit warheads are ass they're not that good i don't like i forgot what hilarious question i was gonna ask you i'm sure it would it would have set the house on fire look i forgot that shit uh i'm trying to think of pixie sticks remember pixie sticks i always hated pixie sticks They're kind of gross.

I mean, that's like. It's just a straw full of sugar. Yeah, I mean, at that point, you got to put that rubber thing around your thing and just mainline that shit at that point. No, I'm trying to stay away from it. Where are you on Hershey's Kisses? I like Hershey's Kisses for Christmas. They are so underrated in reality.

We think of them as a throwaway one, but when that's your only option, those can still slay. So keep that. This is why I want to kill my old producer. She thought York peppermint patties were better tasting than Reese's peanut butter cups. She's wrong, but women love that mint stuff. They love it, Luke. You've got to understand that about them. All right.

Okay. All right. Final thing on this. Yo, the Mars Dark Milky Way. Is that? Yeah. No, the Dark Milky Way is insanely great. No one wants to talk about that.

It tastes like balls, and Three Musketeers is also shit. No, no, no, no, no. Twix and Three Musketeers are still all stars. Twix I'm okay with. Twix I'm okay with. Three Musketeers is feces. No, that's no, no, no. Twix and Three Musketeers are still all-stars. Twix I'm okay with. Twix I'm okay with. Three Musketeers is feces. No, that's a bad take. If you go to someone's house and they give you Three Musketeers,

they basically just shat in your little Halloween bucket. No, not true, Luke. Again, it's an aging superstar, but this is like, you know, you're not taking this. No, Gaff likes Hershey's with nuts in them, okay? That's what I've been told. Yeah. I don't mess around with those nuts. I'm not taking this. No, this is, Gaff likes Hershey's with nuts in them. Okay, that's what I've been told. Yeah. I don't mess around with those nuts.

I'm not against nuts. They just don't belong in chocolate, if they don't need to be. Also, all you people with peanut allergies, I want you to know I look down on you. I just think that you're infirm and weak. Wow. All right. All right. It's like, oh, I can't have nuts i mean why are you i disagree with

you should just go live allergic you should go live in the costa rican jungle somewhere luke it's their it's not their it's not their fault like okay just like you and will hunting luke it's not your fault all right uh okay and then that i think is it for DMs with Donks, which means it's time for your shit. Every week, what we do is we get the really funny videos and we play them for you on Mondays. It's called Have You Seen This Shit? Oh, oh, God. Luke, we scour the globe in these parts for all kinds of fighting shit and beyond,

and we went to UFC Fight Night in Las Vegas. Luke Middleweight's Gregory Rodriguez and Jung Young Park put on a fight of the year contender. Bro, this was sloppy and beautiful. Oh, there's that uppercut. You knew that one was going to close the show. Jesus. Rodriguez, a man's man to win that, Luke, but he didn't bring a dime of defense with him. That was a fun, old-school, sort of like, F it, let's go for it type of fight. He went for it. Damn.

All right, Luke. Flyway Jeff Molina delivering the boom here to Daniel Lacerda early on in the card, if we still have it. There it is. All right. Oh, apparently we missed it. So we'll maybe catch the replay, Luke. This part's fun, I guess.

Yeah, this is great. All right. Maybe we don't see it at all. Oh, boy. You just caught him on the, yeah. You can take that home with you. Yep, that's going to hurt. All right, Luke, let's go over to Women's Strawweight.

Randa Marcos got a much-needed win here with her under 500 record. But how about this running headbutt attempt on livia reinada suza luke is this legal henata oh god good lord jesus bro i'm surprised you didn't get countered running in running her down like that but i guess wow that is that is something right there let's go to bellator 269 in Moscow. On the undercard, they call this guy Baby Fedor, your boy Kirill Sedelnikov taking Rab Truesdale to TKO1 territory, Luke. Yeah, you know, he's been up and down. He didn't quite pan out to be the guy that we thought he was going to be the next Fedor, but, you know, he's big and chubby and got a nice hammering win there. All right. Women's flyweight action.

Katarzyna Sidora getting the TKO2 hair against Dorena Mazook. And look at the slam to set it up, Luke. Yeah, she leaves her own feet so that she crashes on top, which hurts like a motherfucker. Yeah, that's like some WWE shit right there. Wow. Okay. Hey, Risen, Rizin Time in Japan.

Rizin 31. Luke, do you know about this Rikudo Yamada soccer kick KO? That's vicious as shit. Yeah, dude, I was going to talk about this, but you kind of stole my thunder, but that's okay because this is the highlight. It's better. That was fucking super vicious. Damn, dude.

Damn. I mean, I know it's legal. They don't fucking play in Rizin rise and they got some i love their rules yeah i could you could you want this in the ufc you can't really want that okay not necessarily it's like dude we don't here's the thing i don't understand for people sometimes i'm not saying you per se i'm just saying like dude i don't need every promotion to have the same rules i might need every territory to kind of have the same rules, or there needs to be some sort of designated rule systems

that once you have that system and other people use it, they don't tinker with it. But I like the fact that there's a ring in Ryzen. I like the fact that one does things a little bit differently. I like the unified rules too. I like them all. But I don't want the same kind of MMA everywhere. Let's vary it up a little bit you sound like a guy perfectly ready for thanksgiving candy corn luke

i can't wait to see you eat that on there by the way candy corn is the shit i love that's just it's an addicted that's just addiction right there all right let's go to the regional mma scene luke they say anything can happen here including a-second finish that has the internet closing. Oh, well, this guy had it coming. I mean, leg kick. Okay, have a good night. Yeah, I mean, you got to put your hands up. Wow, that's just, whew. Yeah, maybe don't leg kick someone off the glove touch.

Yeah, justice is best served in a dimly lit gymnasium on the regional level. Yes, it is. All right, Luke, XMMA3. That's probably an amateur fight that he lost for free. He got brain damage for free. Probably. Luke, at Ex-MMA3 in Miami over the weekend, we saw former names fall hard.

How about former Bellator champ Daniel Strauss getting all kinds of tuned up by Keith Richardson? Yeah, I was going to go over this one, too, so you stole my thunder, but that's okay. Oh, yeah. It's okay, because you have the highlights actually better this way. I've been stealing since 2019, Luke. Well, Strauss had a series of legal problems that I'm not sure if they've been resolved or not, but it has kept him from consistent training and injuries as well

for some time, and clearly he probably wasn't in the best shape or whatever. And this kid's probably pretty good too, um Strauss is hard to beat and if someone beat him like this I'm guessing he's a diminished version of himself yeah sadly that wasn't the only thing happening in this card Luke former strike force champion Nate Marquardt showing up and that ended quickly a TKO too against Valdir Arujo this was a little bit of a war though Luke he's stance switched uh with the body kick before into a left-handed stance switch and then uh just landed that right up the middle there i'm not sure marquardt ever kind of caught up look at these hammer fists jesus marquardt was remember he said he was gonna make a big comeback i'm like dude when he left the ufc he was don't you

remember that's one of the few instances where his coach trevor whitman threw the towel on behalf was like are you I think it was the Kelvin Gastelum fight maybe something like that where he was like you're not responding you want to keep going he just said forget it this is over and that was the right call he wanted him out to come back he's been real active on the in on the uh on the indies on the regional level Luke and he's been winning some I mean he's washed but um Luke that fight was so wild though did you see Arujo's face and this was been winning some. I mean, he's washed. But, Luke, that fight was so wild, though. Did you see Araujo's face? And this was from winning. Look at those jabs from Marquardt's elbow when he had top position, Luke.

Just, oh, God. Jesus. How much did he get paid for this? 5K? 10K? He kind of looks like the bad guy in Ghost, Willie Lopez, right? I haven't seen that movie in so long. he took yo he took uh swayze soul up in the alley i mean of course swayze soul came back to haunt everybody else but yeah all right yeah

all right luke let's go over to brazil st30 prelims we had some professional pillow fighting only grabaka hitman could give us this type of art into the world, Luke. What the fuck? Yeah. What's in the bags? Is there anything in the bag big enough where you could win? I don't know. I mean, I saw a professional fast tag on ESPN over the weekend.

I guess we got professional. Dude, this only counts if you're in an aisle at Target and it's Black Friday shopping. Or if the ladies are nude. I mean, that's where this belongs, basically, Luke, right? I mean, yeah. Shouldn't you be doing this in, like, street clothes and, like, the winner gets the toaster or something?

Yeah. You know what all my kids do is watch videos involving where they put people to, like, you know, if you touch this car, the last person to keep touching it wins it. You know what I mean? And people like will live there for five days and try to outsmart each other. My kids just love that shit. Have you ever seen the documentary Hands on a Hard Body?

No, I can't watch it. It's like that in the hoarding shows or the pimple popper. I can't. I don't want. I watched. I also don't watch Help. There's a show i saw the other day it was called like because my toes are and my toenails are just i mean i don't have toes so much as i just have fungus where toes have grown out shout out to jubilee i think i uh i think i showed my love to them once you know years

of them you know not doing anything about it getting the military's ruined it but anyway there's a documentary called hands on a hard Body. This was made in the 90s. And it was a deal where you touched a truck. There's a brand new truck at a dealership, and you put your hand on it. And the last person to remove their hand, or the last person standing with their hand on it, I should say, wins the truck. And this would go on for days.

People would be touching it, the truck. And it was a documentary about all of the creatures who try to win a truck via this way. And there guy who's claimed to being able to do it for hours at a time was having a snickers and an orange anyway these were not bright people but the documentary is fucking hilarious long story short these are not our finest americans but they died for it just the same yeah i mean it wasn't a meeting at mensa but uh what are you gonna do uh pro boxing uh top rank was in atlanta for the stevenson card on the undercard luke this Yeah, I mean, there wasn't a meeting at Mensa, but what are you going to do? Pro boxing. Top rank was in Atlanta for the Stevenson card.

On the undercard, Luke, this Puerto Rican young sensation, Xander Zayas, getting the opponent's mouthpiece, knocking it right out of the ring, Luke. He looked great. He looked awesome. I mean, you know, he wasn't fighting the stiffest competition, but he looked great. He got signed by top rank at 16. Yes, he's supposed to be one of their next big things uh the chicago native antoine cobb deep on the undercard made his pro debut luke with a massive first round ko let's see the videotape here oh he sleep yeah that's oh look

at him talking yeah talk that shit i love that uh lu, also son of a legend, Evan Holyfield was back on this card in one of his, you know, four, fifth, six pro fight. He went TKO too here. Look at the fine work from young Evan. Phone booth fighting. Oh, yeah. Just like his dad. Oh, yeah.

Look at him come back and put it on him right there. That left hook. He landed it before. It didn't quite sit him down the first time. It sat him down that time. Evander loves that shit, yes. Evander's like, yo, young holy. I got a property in Las Vegas I need you to check on.

Yeah, I know, this could be me and my dad would be like, hey, when this is over, can you drive by the property to see if we can evict this guy or whatever? Hey, Rob Thomas, this could be us, but you're playing, all right? is over can you drive by the property to see if you can you know evict this guy or whatever hey rob thomas this could be us but you're playing all right oof jesus that was a nice shot yeah a lot of these guys who get flattened at this level you'll notice they just stand in the pocket and don't really move yeah and so it becomes a question of who lands first but um there you go luke i saw this video on on friend of the program Rashad Evans' IG account.

This is Rashad doing knife fighting with an instructor. What the hell is going on here, Luke? Bro, this is me julienning that food I eat at dinner. And my daughter's trying to take it. I don't know. Here's the thing. I don't know. Listen, let me just say this out loud.

I don't know. I know literally jack shit about knife fighting but I tend to wonder like our best practices about knife like how so you remember back in the day when you would get like these like oh I'm gonna be a tai chi master and fight in the UFC like the first five of them and they would get the shit beat out of them and you kind of realize that like that whole thing is totally fraudulent how fraudulent is knife fighting? Like, how real is it? How fraudulent is it?

I just stabbed. I go right for the heart, Luke. I mean, I don't think about technique, you know? I'm like, I got to kill this motherfucker. Have you ever butchered an animal? No, no, no, no. Does that make me less? You've never butchered an animal before does

that make me less of a man luke to you it does dude there's a bunch of things where it's like it's kind of weird like you're like oh i'm the american alpha it's like i don't know if you can bench press your own weight you've never fired a firearm you've never butchered an animal like what have you done is this your criteria is this your criteria for uh for me being a man in your eyes a little i mean i'm not saying you have to be out there butchering animals like fucking Is this your criteria for me being a man in your eyes? A little. I mean, I'm not saying you have to be out there butchering animals like fucking Wolverine or something, but you've never done it?

You've never skinned a deer or anything like that? Well, Robin Williams, I have been laid, okay? I mean, at least, right? All right. I mean, you know, that's not like the world's biggest accomplishment. Oh, I'll tell you what. There are some incels who watch this show, so they're probably pretty proud of you. This past weekend, I changed a vanity and sink completely.

You know, took out the old one, put the new one in, and also changed a small chandelier light and changed another light and did the electrical. Luke, that may sound like what you do on your lunch break. No, I think that counts. If you're a man's man. But that was a monster accomplishment credit where credit is due

that is real handyman shit that counts in the plus column of American Alpha you definitely put a couple of marks on the positive side I'm just saying there's a couple of man shit things you're supposed to have done that you know clock's ticking bro

have you ever hunted hunted oh hell no no i'm not hunting luke i'm not gonna go i'm not gonna yeah it's not that i'm against the practice of killing an animal so it can be eaten luke i just don't want to do the killing you know i love i mean look i got five animals and you know i'm a i'm a i'm an animal weirdo i'm i like animals too but that's actually a more humane way to... Ah, there we go. You know, you're not a real animal lover unless you're willing to kill them. Yeah, oh yeah. No, I'm not saying that.

I don't go... I haven't been hunting in 20 years, but I'm saying that, like, that kind of sustainability around animal life is much better than the factory life of, oh, I look at this bacon that showed up at Harris Teeter and Publix. That bacon that ended up on your plate is almost guaranteed to have lived a horrible, horrible, I look at this bacon that showed up at Harris Teeter and Publix. That bacon that ended up on your plate is almost guaranteed to have lived a horrible, horrible, inhumane life. The deer that you shot, probably not. Probably

had a great life before you took it. That's true. You could say that I've chosen a less manly way to feed my family, but Luke, when it comes to being a hunter and gatherer in this field, I'm fucking coming, bro. That's where my knife training comes into into play okay all right believe that do you own a knife that is not used for like

culinary shit no my dad can't believe that the so my dad was one of those guys who had like you know floor to ceiling tool chests in the garage right to like work on everything right um and he bought me a, a, like the kind of thing you'd buy like an eight-year-old, like a travel, like tool set, right. Right. Like, you know, all, all the basic shit. And he, he was over visiting from Florida last year and something small broke. And I went and I grabbed that kit and I was like, you remember this? And he's like, is that please tell me that's not your operating tool set you know 35 years later i'm like yes it is you're damn right it is all right it's like

your dad's like wait we're using this kind of wrench you got from an ikea yeah um equipment set that you use to build shelves is that it i mean it was funny that's equivalent of eating your dinner in a gas station it really is luke you know it is last it i mean it was funny that's equivalent of eating your dinner in a gas station it really is luke you know it is last thing i'll say this is i had a friend who uh i had one friend uh in in college and then afterwards who was like really rich well the that's not true the girl he married was really rich and so i was his groomsman and all the groomsmen got like this monogrammed each one got a monogrammed set of all these tools in this giant fucking tool bag.

And it was so good to this day, I still use it. It was one of the best gifts I've ever gotten. So there you go. All right, back to the countdown, Luke. We go with this. Drunk Chick Hopping Bar Stools comes up next. Let's watch closely. Oh, is she white?

Yeah, she is. Oh, God god we could have saw that coming i mean that's just can we go this is like it's just fun i mean dude you know what i gotta say the gusto with which she tries this oh yeah i mean she's all in this like american karen warrior you got here going on? I bet you. Do you think this was pre-gaming for a Kid Rock concert, Luke? No, she was pre-gaming for like Three Doors Down and like somebody who gets mad at liberals for getting vaccines, you know? All right. The full profile there. Hey, speaking of the worst things on the internet, remember last week you were like, Island Boys?

What the hell's that, BC? Here you go, look. Now help me understand why these two mutants are famous. Oh, I'm an island boy. I'm a just island boy. I'm a just island boy.

I'm a get key white grind. You're gonna keep that gun. I'll be just staring at the sun. I'm just a fool gazing. I'm so full gazing I'm like, oh, I'm staying there like you wanna be fine. I'm gonna be out Oh great is I'm gonna float. Oh boy. I got a real damn topic. I'm like dumb on the top I'm a island boy. I put my vest on yeah trying to make it to the top I'm an island boy I've been trying to make it

I ain't seen it with a gang gang slang you ain't just slang no kind through the storm through the rain cause we try to home like a lion from an island boy from the Caribbean I'm an island boy put my vest on yeah Someone make the case that you could watch this video

and then think everyone should have the right to vote. I feel like this is the first offspring for when the aliens not only reveal themselves to everybody, but to say, hey, we've taken over this world now. And then you have your first cross marriages, Luke. You know what I'm saying? This is wild. I mean, there's, you know, I guess there's, I,

you know, they say crime is up, but somehow these guys have survived. I don't know how. Well, Luke, that video is taking over the internet. That'll be the last time we speak of it. Let's keep it moving here. Let's go over to the Balloon World Cup. Luke, remember that game you played with your friends growing up when you had no toys or money?

It was just who can keep this balloon from hitting the ground because the floor is lava, brother. They've got a pro league for this now, Luke. Dude, is there anything that's not a sport anymore? Dude, I would own you at this one-on-one, though. If we played in the MK studio. Yeah, you know what? You probably are a little bit more nimble.

Yeah, burning them. Quick and nimble, yeah. I go crazy when I hear a cymbal Luke I would just take my K-bar and pop this fucking thing I don't know why there's a car in there though like I get everything else like these are regular obstacles that you have to contend with to win this game well you know these

guys are pro athletes so after this is over to make money they actually have to wash it and then deliver to us on that so it's actually a car wash yeah okay let's go over to the uh to the diving board this is why these aren't legal in most states anymore luke uh doesn't your insurance rise up when you get a diving board hey is he white oh right i mean some people would think that's cruel showing this video luke but it is this is this is i mean please dear god

this is what gets me up in the morning. I look forward to this video. You don't have enough gym fails for me. I think you've been slacking on your pimping when it comes to that, but this kind of stuff, watching dumb ass. You know what? The only thing that makes this kind of interesting is that it's not an above ground pool. I thought for sure this would have been given how fucking stupid this guy is.

He's still a youth, Luke. Can we move on before FEMA takes over? Somebody reaches out to us and just, okay. Luke, let's go over to this fella. Let's just go over to him, Luke. I mean, this guy's the best, right? He's much cooler than the island boys is that andre karolinko look at this guy's the oh man ak-47 andre karolinko um he has

tamed nature luke one shot at a time i bet he got eaten like a motherfucker dude that bear is not expressing sympathies for me. No, he's not. He's going to... Wow. Okay, let's go back to the drunk chicks. Luke, you ever see a pool filled with beer cans? Oh, I've seen a couple of them. You ever dive in? Oh, no.

What are these fucking morons? It's Natty Light. Oh, bitch, you are... Oh, God. Wow. What did you think? It was going to be some craftmatic adjustable fucking mattress you fucking let's stop the let's stop the fight already that's it okay let's go

over to uh you know what true friendship is luke true friendship is it yeah this these guys are a lot like us uh you know is finding room for your friend on a bicycle built for one luke yeah i'll be the fat guy with a pink shirt Let's see what happens here. Oh Getting to get in the ravine get in the ravine. Yeah This is how you know, it's like Latin America right here, right? Yeah, I feel like we're playing duck hunt with with the 8-bit NES here. Just yeah, bro that guy that guy He just broke the kickstand and then the dude dude on front, by the way, with slippers on,

see him? Slides right through the grass. My man just takes a tumble. All right, hey, let's go back to the MMA cage. Luke, Cage Warriors was on this week. Did you see this insane inside scissors kick KO? So this is my boy, Justin Barry. Do you know this story?

No. So this is Justin Barry. Justin used to live in D.C., and we trained together for several years. Dude, he's going to be a problem for people. I don't know how far he's going to go. I don't know exactly how he's trained these days. He's out in California with another buddy of mine. Shouts to Suni Imhotep,

who was a great training partner of Brian Ortega before his fight with Chan Sung Jung. But Suni and Justin both moved to the West Coast. Dude, let me explain something about Justin Barry. He's a beast.

He is a fucking beast. He trains like he's terrible, which means he's always in there. And it got to a point after like a year of training together i couldn't pass his guard like he is he and he would blow he blew past all of us you know in terms of just how fast he got yo did he break your ribs like he was jason herzog no because he's actually a great training partner and would like take care of people he'd have mercy on which he

would have to have mercy on scrubs like me. But Justin Barry is a bad motherfucker. That was his pro debut. An outside crescent kick KO head kick win was his pro debut lookout. If he is at all good in the way that he was when I was training with him, he's going to hurt people real bad. All right.

Is having that move like having a forkball as a major league pitcher, or is that going to be a legit finishing move in MMA? No one could do that shit. He probably won't catch it very often, but you'd be surprised, man. Let guys go and fade to the outside, then you walk on that kind of an angle. He didn't get it by accident, and he's also smart, too. I think he has a master's degree in computer science. Dude, Justin's the total package. He's going to be a he's gonna i mean why don't you just bang him luke

you know i mean i've tried many times he has rebuffed me and i have been an unrequited lover but no i'm a dude like there's a couple there's a couple of guys i've trained with along the way i was like dude these fucking guys are hard to do anything against like it's like they're firm yeah yeah all right luke i got two more what i'm saying? Justin, Justin was one of the more special guys I've ever had the honor of training with at hoagie farts on Instagram wants to know, does this mask frighten you at all? Luke, could this be the new clown in the closet that just taunts you for the rest of your life? Uh, that is a Jesus.

That is, I'm not one of these guys that like dolls are creepy, but that I might make an exception for this one. Yeah. Lord. Yeah. Wow. Finally, Luke, I wouldn't eat this shit for many reasons. How about you for gas station fare? They call this a shrimp dog.

Can we blow it up? Now, walk me through the brown sauce. What is that? Is that that chili if it's it probably if it's any kind of soy you're going in them you're going out you're going to place i'm not i'm not following you there i'm doing i'm already not going there luke okay would you would you eat not just try a bite i would try a bite of almost anything would you eat a full one of these for five dollars cash see i'm one of those people that like i'm on the fence about shrimp like i've had it and it's really good

i've also had it and i just feel gross i'm like texture wise i just i don't want to do this anymore okay so back up back up when you had the shrimp how did was it prepared that you liked it probably a lot of like pepper and seasonings and stuff. What I'm saying, like grilled or was it in a soup or what was it? No, it was grilled. It was like, you know, in general, shrimp makes me, it makes me, you know, I have a very small tolerance for it. So I don't think I could do this in general. Plus, I don't know if you've heard my, I got a black liver, Luke.

I'm really, really working hard trying to repair that. But everything about this sucks. If you replace those with uh with baked beans which i've done many times uh that's that's a that's that's you're going somewhere now okay chili yeah yeah oh hell yeah i would say this this is obviously disgusting but at least they deveined the shrimp do you know about deveining shrimp yeah i'm not into that either i don't want to you know no no you should devein shrimp like if you don't devein shrimp, that's the problem. Right.

Well, that's part of the gross factor, Luke. Okay. Yeah, so for folks who have ever served shrimp, if you go to someone's house and there's a black line over the sort of spine of the shrimp, you're not going to get sick eating it, but that is literally their feces. You might want to cut that part out,

which you can see it's cut out. Oh, God. This is good. Wow. I actually like shrimp. I like ceviche shrimp I like grilled shrimp I like shrimp a lot but I gotta say I don't know what's grosser um like they could that dog it's a it's an unc that dog looks like my dog's hog does that make sense it's too pink for my comfort level I don't know if I can i mean is it possible that i'd move on from that that dog that dog's hog looks like my dog's hog uh yeah i told myself

i would never make another birthing room floor joke on this show look so i'm gonna stop all right i'm gonna stop i'm just gonna say it looks uncomfortably like my dog's hog when he gets all right this what a gross episode top top to bottom, all things considered. Yeah, that was... Well, at least we got to see the Island Boys, and my faith in democracy was restored. Yes. All right, time for odds and ends, BC. What do you got for odds and or ends?

Also on that top-ranked undercard, which also gave us the young Holyfield, Evan Holyfield, we had Nico Ali Walsh, yes, the grandson of Muhammad Ali, back on a short turnaround. I think this was his second pro fight, and look, he got the finish and got a knockout, and he's got a little bit of pop for a guy 2-0. But I thought Tim Bradley, who's been on fire lately in general,

is a great boxing analyst. Yeah, he's good. I liked him. I mean, he was on point, and I think rightfully nagging on this, that Ali just doesn't move his head. And against, forget an elite guy, I guess anybody really with a pulse, think rightfully like nagging on this that Ali just doesn't move his head and against forget you know an elite guy I guess anybody really with a pulse he's going to walk into something soon and this experiment is going to be all for nothing so it's not a like it's not an overwhelmingly bright light blinking like you will never be anything but it's a major early foundational

problem that's not there. So my overall problem is this Luke, like ESPN on top, right? They kind of have something here. I mean, this is one of the last remaining bits of bait. You can hang out there and get those old Ali fans, right? To, to, to get back into boxing one more time. But this guy's just not good enough to get the every fight in my journey will be a co-main event treatment, which is basically what he's getting right now. He's not, he's not that guy at all. He could actually benefit a lot. I think from going off TV for about four to five fights and really just getting better at boxing. Once he's in a better spot, really every time he fights, it should be televised somewhere, right? I mean, it's, it's a story. It's a fun process. There's flavor, flavor in there, Luke.

I mean, there's a, there's some wild things going going on but uh dude if they keep going at this rate like he's gonna get he can get splattered bro bob arum is so fucking old that he promoted ali and now he's promoting ali's grandson i mean you got to be kidding me bob is never gonna die much to the chagrin of mike coppinger but he's never gonna die he He's just going to be old as fuck forever Alright well you got to Keith Richardson At XMMA And we talked about Ryzen a little bit So I'll just wrap up mine for odds and ends

KSW we talked about it very briefly On Friday The 600 pound weigh in basically Between Marius Puginowski And this dude from Senegal I think he did Senegalese lamb wrestling. Bombardier, I think was his name. Well, it didn't go real well for Bombardier. He got flatlined in just, I think, 18 seconds. I tweeted about it, BC. Did you see

this fight? I mean, it was really like a street fight in the sense that, like, you know how it goes in the street. Two guys square off. Usually the first one to land wins the whole show and that was exactly what happened here he landed a right hand that the big dude just walked into fell over fight over it's fun for weigh-ins and photos but the fights tend to be not not thrilling you know um where'd you go i mean it it was did you want it to be sloppier i mean it was pretty sloppy a little bit a little bit i want not not so much sloppier but like longer could it could it have gone a minute you know so um how about this luke you shot me down early you shot me down early when i came hard to the center of the table with musashi as a fedor opponent marius putin okay bellator main event okay i like that one i'm here i'm kind of

here now now you have my interest level because you have the exact same dynamic i mean 15 years ago fedor may have been into it too i mean he's had a few of these luke dude fedor has never been a stranger to taking like a fuck off fight he's taking a million of those but he takes it in fact he he takes it like tension nasa kawa he takes it really seriously though luke he just happens to win them you know dude he do he remember he fought uh who was it zulo zinho uh junior beat the shit out of him and hong man choi yeah hong man choi and all these motherfuckers. Dude, that's a perfect, that's the way to write in Fedor's wheelhouse. Some muscly, slow guy he can just steal on real quickly.

All right, get Scotty Cokes on the line. We'll do that in Chicago. Be a huge Polish and Russian setting there. It'd be great. I will do my best to convince Scott Coker. I'm sure he cares deeply about our opinions, BC. All right. With that out of the way, that is most of the show, BC.

It was a good one. It sounds like you had a very... Are you sick, by the way? You sound a little under the weather. Yeah, so remember I didn't sleep on that red-eye flight Thursday night. When you don't sleep on a red-eye flight, again, this Russian roulette, it's one of two things that happen, right? You either sleep and you steal a day and you go on like normal,

or you don't sleep and you're sick off of exhaustion for four days and you get a cold. So you can even catch pneumonia on that ass, Luke. That's normally what happens on these. Don't I, am I so old and washed that if I don't get an actual night of sleep, I'm like, I just, that's just the penalty you get right here. You're sick with something. Could be, I think that's right. I think hopefully it's not COVID, right? No, I just have allergies binding up. But I'm still exhausted, Luke. I F'd myself, all right? I see that.

I see that. Well, for everyone else, make sure that you like the video. Give it a thumbs up. By the way, I want to remind everyone, MK Extra Credit will come out later today where I'll get to some of these fights that we just didn't even have a chance to get to on this particular show. So be on the lookout for that. If you want to try Showtime, you may.

Showtime.com, 30-day free trial. If you like it, you can keep it. If not, I don't know why you wouldn't, but you were free to cancel after that point if you want to. We will have your name and your login info and we'll be coming for you. Which we'll just use to commit credit card fraud. That means we're not Showtime. And then we'll just use to commit credit card fraud. That's me and BC at showtime. And then we'll sell you predatory loans to get out of that fraud. Give us your car title.

And we'll make sure you got clean balls while you do it. Okay, there we go. Morningcombat.store to get some of our Halloween merch, which, by the way, you got to do it now because Halloween is right around. BC, what are you going to dress up for for Halloween, I should say? I will be in Las Vegas, Luke. That's okay. You didn't answer my question.

What are you going to dress up as? A tourist alone in his room. All right. A sad man touching himself below the waist. Okay. I've seen that guy before. Yeah, I've spotted him a few times. Yeah.

Yeah. Wow. So go get the merch if you are so inclined morningcombat.store you can use the promo code live10 L-I-V-E 1-0

to get 10% off if you're so inclined morningcombat at gmail.com for Wednesday's fan subs and Friday's dead wrong

is the place to to go and then last but certainly not least help us scam the system and give us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts. If it's funny, we'll chuck some money your way because we are trying to be scam artists. When are we going to end that gimmick? Did they

go through the responses yet? Do we have a winner? I think they've begun to select some finalists, but I don't think they've done the winner part yet. The race is still open. Anyone can claim it. All right, so that is it. I want to thank Malka.

I want to thank CBS Sports. I want to thank Showtime. I want to thank Washed Campbell. I'm Washed Luke. Love you guys. Thank you so much for watching. Thumbs up on the video. Stay tuned for extra credit later in the show,

or later in the afternoon, I should say, plus more content, fresh content coming your way tomorrow. I have a big interview that we're going to share. So until then, thank you for watching, and may all of your gains be loyal.