MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Weekend Recap: UFC Fight Night | Josh Taylor vs. Jose Ramirez | Bellator 259 | Ep 160

Episode Date: May 24, 2021

Luke and Brian are back to recap a jam packed combat sports weekend. The guys recap UFC Fight Night Font vs. Garbrandt (6:30). Next up the guys break down Josh Taylor's win over Jose Ramirez and what that means for his legacy (27:05). The guys close out the main topics by recapping Bellator 259 (40:00) and discussing Manny Pacquiao vs. Errol Spence (48:40). As always we close out the Monday show with Dm's from Donks (57:20), HYSTS (77:30) and Odds & ends (96:50). 'Morning Kombat’ is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Bullhorn and wherever else you listen to podcasts.    For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit: store.sho.com   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat  To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

This is Morning Combat. All right, it is the 24th of May, 2021. It's 9 a.m. in the east coast of Los Estados Unidos. That means only one thing. This is Morning Combat, two hours before its normal start time. Hi, everyone. My name is Luke Thomas. I'm one half of your hosting duo. But the both of us, the both of us, ViacomCBS employees. My name is, as I mentioned, Luke Thomas. That's Brian B.C. Campbell. Hi, Brian Campbell. How was your weekend?

It was wonderful, Luke, the weather. Look, here's the deal, Luke. I grew up my whole life as a youth thinking summer was the best season. And growing up in New England, you get all four seasons. You get them intense, brother, right up the backside. You know, as an adult, Luke, I settled in on autumn, or as they call it around these parts, fall as the real season. Luke, I've been wrong this whole time.

Spring is a bad mother effort, Luke. I mean, what a beautiful weekend I had. It's morning somewhere, so thank you to all for waking up this early. Our fans in Australia are getting to watch us live down under. So I'll be jumping on an airplane after this on assignment in a very secret clandestine operation that hopefully people will find out later. But, Luke, I'm happy to be here. I was in a kayak over the weekend in the sun. I had dogs swimming around next to me. I was living a brief

taste of the good life. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, that's nice. I took my daughter to her first sports game yesterday. I told you no one would recognize me there because MMA fans don't watch other sports for the most part. So we went to DC United. They lost to the Philadelphia Union, but that's okay because BC, my kid, she just

turned two. You've got to have managed expectations about how much of a game she'll watch. Let me tell you if you think this is a victory for a two-year-old, all right? Doesn't even know what soccer is. I got a solid in the chair, focused on the field. I got a solid 30 minutes out of that. 30 minutes. That's pretty good. I would have guessed that she would have probably crapped her pants,

because that happens at public events with your kids, and she probably would have wanted to leave within 20 minutes. So you already won there. Get her a hot dog. Keep her satisfied for a while, Luke, okay? Yeah, we made it almost 20 minutes into the second half. I feel like that's pretty good as I hear strange noises that emanate from places that I don't know about.

Okay, we have a lot to get to today, BC, because there was Bellator on Friday. There was Taylor Ramirez on Saturday. There was UFC on Saturday. A lot of different stuff. Plus, we have stuff coming up this weekend. The train keeps moving forward. As always, like the video, and then please subscribe to this wonderful podcast if you are so inclined, because we have a lot of things going on that you're going to want to pay attention to. Please, please. If you want to try Showtime, you can see all of the social media places you can give us a follow there. Morning Combat, same name everywhere.

If you want to try Showtime, you certainly can. Showtime.com. You can get a 30-day free trial if you like it. You can keep it. If not, you can go do something else with your life. If you want to email the show, any of your illustrations, any of you guys wearing MK gear in public, morning combat at gmail.com is the best place to go.

Remember, for Memorial Day, we are going to do a special mailbag episode. Go ahead and on Apple Podcasts, leave us a nice review. Yes, we're gaming the system. We acknowledge it outright, but it's a great way for us to game the system. And when you leave us a nice five-star review, put a question in there, and then we'll read them for the mailbag episode. Yeah, unlike Luke's Real Madrid fandom, we're at least being upfront with what's really happening here.

So shout out to that. Luke, notice you didn't mention at all that the new merch is coming. Notice that you just avoided that topic altogether. I mean, hold on. BC, BC, why should I? What reason could I possibly give today for the fans to take us even halfway seriously on this claim? Thank you. I mean, it's not always there when you call, and it's never on time.

It is Morning Combat merch 2.0. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, if you want to get merch that's already available, if you live in five counties that they can throw a Frisbee to. Store.show.com. You're in luck. But for everyone else, I don't even know what to tell these people anymore, dude. Like, it's not even worth bringing up until there's real movement. And I don't even know when that's going to be.

So, you know, great job on everyone who had a hand in that, I guess. Yay. I got nothing to say. I'm sorry, people. I'm fighting for you. But I got nothing to say. All right. It is I'm fighting for you but I got nothing to say all right it is what it is yeah yep uh okay all right with that out of the way BC we do have a lot of topics to get to so let's hit them up in order all right topic number one let's start with

it Rob Font defeats Cody Garbrandt via unanimous decision I believe there was like a couple of 50 45s in there maybe maybe one 48-47. I don't know how on earth you can give Cody Garbrandt two rounds of that fight. It was one way traffic basically from the get-go. I thought Rob Font looked incredible. The question is, BC, let's see what you think about this. Two-parter. Number one, is this a real classic example of what we call a signature win and two where does this actually put him Rob Font in that contendership bantamweight space yes Luke look there are times that I don't think every main event should be a five-rounder this was one of those where we had to learn something about Rob Font and we learned it in a big way. This was a big night, this UFC fight night card in Vegas

for people taking that serious next-level leap. Here's what I learned about Rob Font to the point of your questions. This was a breakout signature win, one, yes, and two, this puts him in the title conversation, which has to be exactly what he was looking for. Is he next? No. It's a crowded space only made more difficult by the situation between Peter Jan and Aljamain Sterling with the DQ and all that.

We know that stuff. But here's what Rob Fott did for five rounds. Showed me, Luke, he's better than I thought he was. He was so damn poised against a former champion, against a guy with knockout power at any time. Luke, I don't want to get weird and gross with you, but this was like the perfect example of the start-stop method. You remember that from high school, right?

Did you go to Catholic high school or something? Luke, it was constant pressure, but up to a certain point. And that constant pressure constantly put Cody Garbrandt on the defensive. And while I'm here to say it was good from put Cody Garbrandt on the defensive and while I'm here to say like it was good from a Cody Garbrandt who's trying to mature following those three knockout losses that he never really took the bait and he never really went for broke and went for the knockout but in a weird way that almost played against him because what Rob Fon showed me for five rounds 25 minutes was that his technical game is at such a very high level that he simply outboxed and just outperformed Cody.

But then he had the two key intangibles in which he was able to pull it off. He had the chin on the balls, you know, to back up to the times that when Cody did land big, he never crumbled. And then, Luke, I think you know full well, while his takedown defense was not 100% accurate, his ability to not get in any kind of trouble on the ground and make all of Cody's level changes and takedowns essentially worthless was very key in this. This was a mature, title-picture-ready type performance.

And I don't think you can say anything else, but although this guy's not next he is in play right now in a very crowded division I mean just look at the still shots here that we're showing of the victory it was it was a masterful performance by Rob Font one largely a function of who controlled the range Cody Garbrandt could never establish his range. There were times when maybe you would see Font get pushed back a little bit and Cody would land a good shot, or sometimes Rob Font would maybe slightly overcommit

and you would see Rob get countered by Cody in those circumstances. But other than that, which was fairly few and far between, Rob Font completely showing us if you can take a mature, developed, range-centric, I mean, I think behind the jab kind of boxing game into modern MMA with all the other things you mentioned, the Kimura trap system from underneath, or he was using also front kicks as well, right? Sort of mixing everything up.

You know, you can just do absolutely spectacular things. You look at his, this is the win streak he's been on, BC, right, for Rob Font. Rob Font has since losing to Asuncao. He beat Sergio Pettis, who's the new Bellator bantamweight champion. He beat Ricky Simone, who's just an absolute definition of grinder. Marlon Marais, former champion, and now Cody Garbrandt over five rounds, never showing even a slight hint of cardiovascular conditioning issues or anything else. It was just a demonstration of somebody, because Rob Fonts always had good technical prowess, but he was kind of overwhelmed by John Lineker's firepower. Boy, I wonder what would happen if they ran that back.

Lineker's still a force to be reckoned with, but Font, to me, has worked out how to deal with all of those different kinds of guys. And so he was always the guy who gave good fighters tough outs. Now he's become that good fighter. Now he's become that elite. If you can beat a guy, BC, in bantamweight at 135 pounds, right, inside the top five that thoroughly, wow, man, that does not come

very often incredible look our commenter our commenters know full well it wouldn't be morning combat without luke calling marlon marais a former champion you meant world series of fighting not ufc yes world series of fighting champion yes shout out to him uh so what i meant on the sort of start stop method thing luke is it's sort of like of like it's a precarious sort of tiptoeing walk to be able to put on a certain level of pressure but not go over that line because Rob Thon didn't want to trade bombs with Cody.

Most guys wouldn't and shouldn't and his ability to stay just short of that line yet disciplining Cody by doing that. Luke, in the end, do you think Cody was too disciplined for his own good in which that technical jabbing, yet pressure up to a certain point style from Font put Cody in just a box that he couldn't get out of?

Would you have liked to have seen in hindsight, mid-round four, Garbrandt going, you know what? They don't want me to be the brawler, but this might be my only chance to win. It's not even the brawling. I didn't understand why there weren't, like you knew Rob was going to pressure you, right? And he's using the jab. Cody's good at trunk movement. Cody's good at rolling.

Cody's, he wasn't so good at slipping in this one. But the point I'm trying to make is if you look at what he would do when Dominic Cruz would overcommit, he would have a flurry of hand combinations to really deter him from any kind of forward pressure which changed the game a little bit I was wondering where those were to me it was a lot of sometimes he would throw a single shot sometimes he would cover up sometimes he'd get hit and sometimes he'd just evade there wasn't this moment where he would try to really overwhelm you for someone overstepping it aside from the occasional one-time big shot that would land. Which, to Cody's credit, sometimes it did land with authority.

It wasn't like it was a lost cause altogether. It just wasn't enough to put together a winning performance by itself. So that's the part to me. Here's the other part, BC. I wonder how you feel about this. I can't decide. To me, that fight looked absolutely lost to Cody after the third. Not to say he quit fighting, but it didn't look lost to Cody after the third. Not to say he quit fighting, but I just didn't,

it didn't look competitive to me after the third. Like, they had kind of settled into their roles a little bit. How much do you think Cody gassed, and is it at all related to, I don't want to make this a politicized battle, I just want to bring it up just to say, he was off for a while, and he had a uniquely troubling bout with COVID a uniquely trouble i mean he lost six months of his career just to get over it all right do we think he had any lingering impacts from it look it's hard for me to answer that without really knowing and being in his body i didn't

think that though to be honest one time during the fight i didn't think that, though, to be honest, one time during the fight. I didn't think he actually guessed, Luke. I just think that he was almost a little too overconfident that he was going to find a way with a counter shot to turn the complete momentum of the fight and get a finish. Now, again, this is where you've got to credit Rob Font's chin. Cody did have moments in 3, 4, and 5, brief moments. Counter overhand right. I think he had a knee at one time to the face. But Font never showed any sort of vulnerability like, oh, crap, he's hurt, brief moments, counter overhand right. I think he had a knee at one time to the face, but Font never showed any sort of vulnerability like, oh, crap, he's hurt,

or this could be an opening for Cody. So I think in the end I saw Cody that was, while you may be right in saying that, there may be underlying factors physically that did not allow him to raise his game to another level. What I saw instead was a fighter who's still trying to figure out up here, the fighter that all the coaches, you know, he added Mark Henry to his team. You know, it's like they're looking at what he did wrong in those three losses, and they're trying to make him a little bit more disciplined and fix errors. I saw a guy whose head, whose brain is constantly like,

I'm trying to be this, I'm trying to be this, I'm trying to be this, and he's not really comfortable in being that that's what i saw in the end luke that you know he knows he needs to be less aggressive but he's not fully comfortable in doing that yeah i want to be clear i don't know that that any lingering covet issues has anything to do with it i'm just sort of wondering what other people might have to say about it to me it's you know at best inconclusive we simply don't. And I also think there's some of these other things where you're trying to get him to fight in a way that doesn't come natural. Far be it for me to say that, you know, coaches should listen to what we have to say about game plans. But I do think, here's one thing I just couldn't

pick up on. You know, it's the fourth and fifth round. You probably have lost at least the first two of the three right i know some folks i think gave cody the first okay i didn't think that was deserved but i can understand that two and three no chance four no chance so let's say you lost those dude into the fifth round there should be more urgency you know i just didn't see in the late in the late moments a lot of urgency now what now what that lack of urgency comes from hey hey, man, your guess is as good as mine. But I did find that a little surprising for a guy who used to fight down on the mouthpiece style.

Okay, you want to redirect that. But when it's time to channel that beast, it's time to channel the beast. And I just didn't, I never saw that gear. Here's what's crazy. Look, this is not the same Cody Garbrandt from the championship version of him. We all understand that, all right?

But, and I don't want to discount what three knockout defeats could have done to diminish him to a certain degree, right? But I think for Cody, it's a confidence game. Like, what is the key part about that Dominic Cruz performance that was so, just, you know, leap through your screen? The poise. Oh, he danced? I mean, yeah. I mean, he got the robot dance going. But the poise he danced i mean yeah i mean he got the robot dance going but the poise and the confidence he showed in that fight luke i mean the ability to to like be in that deep end of the pool against an experienced champion and be in command and

look like he was born to do that he was riding at a level of confidence i bring this up a lot because i it's you know you you talk to fighters, they'll tell you it's 90% mental. Almost everything in life is. He's not the same. If he's lost anything in those three knockout losses, Luke, I think it is that confidence, and it's rightfully so. He got a good deal of it back in the Asuncao fight, and he looked incredible. But we don't know, to what you said earlier,

the full extent of what the last year has done to him physically or mentally. It wasn't an awful performance from him. It did lack urgency. I think he was surprised that Font was that good and could cut that high level of a pace and never really crumble. I would have liked to have seen more of a strategy on the ground when he took Font down. There's certainly a lot of things I can pick at.

But I'm also, I don't know if the mojo is still there, Luke. You know what I'm saying? We're going to have to see. In terms of Rob Font, what do you think makes sense next? Should he get the winner of Sanhagen and Dillashaw? Should he fight someone else around that space? What do you think? Well, it's going to be interesting because I think we've both established in previous episodes that Sanhagen, if he beats Dillaw I mean what you know he has to be next in line right so that sort of covers that but

there are other names around that four five six area that that could make sense do you have the rankings out in front of you Luke matchmake yes I do so obviously Aljamain's the champion one is Peter Yan they're gonna have to run that back so there out, you have Corey Sandhagen at two, Rob Font at three, Garbrandt at four, Jose Aldo at five. He's got a fight with Pedro Munoz coming up. But then it gets kind of slim pickings. Six is Marlon Marais. He already beat him.

Frankie Edgar is in there, but he got absolutely wrecked by Sandhagen. Munoz at eight, Cruz at nine, and then Rob Devalishvili at 10. You could maybe fudge the Cruz fight as a way to get him a bigger name. Yeah, I was going to say Edgar Cruz for the whole standpoint of we don't have anything bigger for you, so let's give you a big name that you can potentially, if you can do it again,

you can really make a leap up. Look, they match guys against old names for that explicit purpose, but it really works in the public eye. When you defeat a big name, whether that person is faded or not, people tend to take you a lot more seriously. All right, let's move on to topic number two, if we can. A little bit of crow that we have to eat here.

I mean, we didn't totally dismiss Carla Esparza. In fact, I think we give her credit for some of the stuff that she's done in her career, but I don't know that either of us saw this coming. You want to talk about one-way traffic, BC. Carla Esparza absolutely stomps on Yon Shao Nan. Not especially competitive at all, BC. Folks, or BC, why have folks, including us, not been dismissive?

We were never dismissive of Carla Esparza, but we were a little bit dismissive of her chances here or her chance to even look as good as she did why number one bc and two title shot next okay why because she hadn't shown this mentality focus and drive to be a finisher in the past you add to that some split decision wins against some very good competition that it wasn't smoke or mirrors, but we saw somebody with the potential of warning track power. And what I mean by that is warning track power from the idea of I'm going to go in there. I'm going to own this fight and finish you. Luke, I will happily take the L right here. This was a mature, impressive, commanding performance by the Cookie Monster, who is ready to be the best that she's ever been in her career. Five wins in a row.

And what did we say? With the storyline of her and Rose and her having defeated Nama Yunus in 2014 for the inaugural title, she's going to have an upper hand on others if she can come forth with a win in this fight and be impressive doing so to leap above everybody and get into that that next title shot uh luke she did that and then some she this was this was one way traffic's not even the best way to do it look here's the thing about carla she came in in the best shape of her life and you could see that at the weigh-in and she's talked about how much extra work she's put in luke when fighters get to that point in their early 30s when

they've already had the big moment earlier in their career, sometimes it's hard to, you know, you can stay at a pretty good level, but it's hard to find that extra gear to dig really deep and evolve your game and also physically take your game to a level you've never been. Let's give

her full credit. Has there been a couple split decisions along the way? Yes. But she's fighting top competition in the dangerous division and she's getting better now look this fight completely went her way on her terms but if she can do that and be the best wrestler in this division now that Suarez is moving up and really carry out this grungy almost angry style on the ground um yeah she's a legitimate title contender and she deserves to be next because she didn't allow Jan a second of hope in this fight.

And it was shocking to see given the striking of Jan coming in. But Esparza took every opportunity and advantage. You saw that early shoot two seconds into the fight. And Luke, to see her that vicious and going for the finish, this is a new fighter. I don't know what happened in that training camp, Luke. I'll have what she's having there finish this is a new fighter I don't know what happened in that

training camp Luke I'll have what she's having there because this is a new fighter who is hungry angry and ready to get back to a level she has never been at before straight up this is the best version of her I've ever seen and I'm very happy to see that you know to me there's like three places of her career there's everything she did to get to the UFC including that title win over Rose but then there was her period to get to the UFC, including that title win over Rose. But then there was her period of adjusting to the UFC level of competition, right? She had moved out of the regional slash Invicta space. And then there's this last period where she has really developed.

I mean, how many times do we come on the show and say, hey, we need to really reevaluate X or Y? We had this impression of them that's lasted a while, but all of their recent success is making us rethink exactly how good they may be or where their place in the division lies. So to wit, she goes 10-2 beating Rose Namajunas, but then she wins three but loses four of her next seven UFC fights, right?

So she's underwater, so to speak. And then, BC, she beats Veena Janjarova, who we know is obviously a phenomenal black belt. She beats Alexa Grasso. Okay, she had two tight ones against Michelle Watterson and Marina Rodriguez, but hello, those names

are incredible. And then she just absolutely decimates inside of two, Jian Xiaonan. Dude, that is an amazing win streak. That is very good. Those are all credentialed opponents. And to your point, man, it's a mentality shift that I think is brought to bear by one. She's been working with a great team for a long time.

Colin Oyama just knows how to bring people along. You know, she stumbled adjusting to the next level, but not anymore. She fully belongs here. She is absolutely a title contender in my mind. You just nailed it. You just nailed it. Last thing I'll say, last thing I'll say, and I'll pitch it back to you.

She's got a little bit of the Wonder Boy vibes, BC. We see someone go for a title, you know, or they get kind of overwhelmed by the top of the division and then pushed out, and you say to yourself, okay, they had their chance with the belt. Let's just see what everyone else can do but she has stubbornly refused to give into that and look you know she's she's evolved with the division finally and that's the key point luke is that she won the title you know at day one of this division when the ultimate fighter season rolled out and you know you look back and you see how like simplistic that version of Rose was compared to the Rose now, right? Everyone in this division

has evolved and grown at such a high rate. So I'm very happy to take the L and see her evolvement equal that now and see her, you know, worthy of this. Yes, I think she deserves and will be the next title challenger helped of course of course, by the built-in story, but it's a great built-in story of her having previously defeated Rose. But look, one devil's advocate point here. This fight went perfectly in Esparza's lane, played to her strength. She got takedowns, and she went right into side position, trying to set up that crucifix, brutal elbows,

and look, Jan was just run over. It wasn't even close. If an elite can stuff her takedown, can she still win the championship? I don't know. Probably not. Probably not. I mean, her best work is clearly mixing it up and or punishment or control on the feet. Sorry, on the ground.

It's a little bit like Frankie Edgar. Can he win outright striking? It's a little dicey. Can he win if he can establish the takedown threat? He's much more likely to do well, right? It's something. I mean, I'm not saying he has the same. Edgar has great boxing.

Luke, she can box. I'm not trying to say that, but I'm saying. She doesn't quite have Frankie Edgar boxing, but I know what you mean. I mean, it's the same thing as saying that, you know, if you stuff Habib, can you beat him? Well, you know, probably in theory, but good luck doing so, right?

Right, right. You know, well, she did lose to Tatiana Suarez. I mean, Suarez is now leaving the division, though, so it's like... I don't know who would be able to stop her i guess we'll see you know if she has a rematch against you and jay check that'd be kind of interesting i'd love to see that um i don't know if she'll get a title shot let me see the cue here yeah she's getting that she's gonna get the next title shot i'm telling you i'm telling you right so

yep i'm telling you she had yon shau non sitting at three so esparza will leap that and then you've got one and two as Wiley and Ioana, but they might put them together. There's a lot of different ways that could go. And look, we always look at matchmaking, you and I, through the lens of the promoter, which you have to. And look, Carla Esparza, Mexican-American, and that's a market that they don't regularly tap big into.

I think you go in that direction for the storyline, and it also helps you rebuild slowly. Should Rose beat Carla, you get back into that Whaley rematch. I think Whaley needs a comeback fight to reestablish yourself, Luke. And if you do... Yeah, I think that's right. And by the way, Mackenzie Dern is sitting at five, but I don't think you could leap her.

Sorry, I don't think you could push her ahead of esparza at this point i don't think you could do that agreed all right point number three here uh let's talk about this this was to me the best fight all weekend period i don't think there's anything even all that close uh credit to bc when he told us to pay attention i did. I learned my lesson in ignoring that, and the fight delivered enormously. Josh Taylor becomes only the sixth boxer in modern history to unify all four of the major sanctioning body titles in one weight class. In this case, junior welterweight or around 140, 141 pounds or so. And he did it by knocking down Jose Ramirez twice and just being the sharper boxer overall. Certainly down the stretch, BC.

Okay, a lot of different pieces I want to put together here. Let's start with this one. How historic is this achievement? Biggest takeaway. You know, it's weird because when Terrence Crawford did this in 2017, and again, I said this the other day, when he knocked out Julius Ndongo, it was like, who the hell's Ndongo? And since then, who the hell is Ndongo, right? So I don't think we gave Bud Crawford as much credit

because we're sort of like, okay, the division's kind of dead. What made this extra special was that you had two established unbeaten champions, each with two belts, and each having gone through the wars to get to this point. And with COVID, it delayed the fight an additional year. So, Luke, it was like on paper, this fight can't lose. It's going to kill.

It's going to entertain. It's historic. And you know what? It didn't even live up to its expectations. But credit to both guys, it was still a mini thriller. It was still a great fight. So, yes, because of what I just said, it means more historically. Very few people have done this. It's hard to do in this multi-belt era. Put all these belts together. You got

mandatories. You got a lot of bullshit, right? Well, Taylor went through that bullshit and he went through a very tough and game fighter. Luke, I said coming in, the difference would be Taylor's power. And it was because, you know, you saw that with the two knockdowns and those that turned out to be very key in the scoring i had issue with the scoring 114 112 from all three judges across the board so that tells you they scored the fight six to six would have been a draw without those two knockdowns i had this fight nine rounds to three so you know was i over and above in the direction of taylor compared to the judges? Yes. I just thought what Taylor did, Luke, was he knew he had a hard charger in front of him,

a guy in Ramirez who likes to get inside, who likes to get off first. He took away Ramirez's jab and, for the most part, kept the fight at middle distance. And at middle distance, Josh Taylor from that southpaw stance is a killer. He's got a stiff jab. He can go to the body from distance and land, which he did to slow Ramirez down, and he's got that big left hand when needed. I think that all came together. It was a brilliant performance, a pound-for-pound top 10 worthy performance for a guy from Taylor who has been lingering around that. When he beat

Ruger a couple years ago, he got a couple votes. He's been lingering around that top 10. To me, this leaps him into it. Josh, what's his trainer? Tyson Fury's old trainer. Ben Davison. Ben Davison, that's what it is. Ben Davison, I think, has been a huge help to the game planning. A very underrated guy who, you know, Tyson Fury kind of threw him to the side to bring in, you know, the old Konk trainer, and that's great for Tyson. He wanted to be more offensive. But Davidson's a game planner, an X's and O's guy, and I think you saw that, Luke. Ramirez, I'll give him love and credit. He's never going to be out of a fight because he's going to keep coming, but I think after

those two knockdowns, he was a little bit, you know, getting by on fumes and just trying to go forward and do whatever he can do. He wasn't really in the fight. I know three of the judges gave him a bunch of those final rounds. Again, I disagree because I thought Taylor was controlling him from distance, but who cares at the end of the day? The right guy won, and this is a potential, a potential star-making turn here for Taylor from Scotland because they're talking about maybe Terrence Crawford next,

and whether he does or he doesn't, you've got a lot of stars at 35, including Teofimo Lopez, that are going to want to move up. This will become big business for Taylor, and Luke, I think he proved without a shadow of a doubt he was the better man. Yeah, he did. I had a score a little bit more in keeping

with what the commentator said. I wasn't hardcore scoring, but it did seem to me that I thought through the early part of the fight, Ramirez was doing the better work, but then once he got – not that Taylor wasn't landing on him. I mean, Taylor was finding home runs left and right. But then once he dropped him in that sixth or seventh round, whichever one it was, the fight turned. He could no longer fully commit to being himself.

Like, the things he did. What was Ramirez's best round? Like, the third round, right? Third. He just really went to work on him. He stepped up the pressure and he got inside. Right, exactly. He couldn't get back to that space.

I got to tell you, I found Ben Davison's game plan here pretty amazing. One of the things I wanted to pay attention to was the footwork here. I know Ben Davison got let go by Tyson Fury, but you could argue, you could argue that Ben Davison had a winning game plan in the first fight. Maybe too defensive, maybe not the best game plan he could have had, but you could argue that was a winning game plan. It wasn't terrible by any stretch. And in this one, you know what's kind of amazing? They kept talking about that pull counter two that he had where he pulled, Ramirez came in and he popped him with the left. But don't pay attention to that.

Pay attention to the footwork. And you'll see Ramirez really wide and you'll see Taylor intentionally taking that middle space, forcing him to come a little bit wide. And when he does, he gets under it and then brings the left across his body to hit it. He doesn't do that a lot of other times when he throws the left. Those other times he actually would step outside. He let Ramirez have the lead outside foot positioning for a lot of the rounds. I think to force him to go wide so he can maintain that jab space, get any uppercuts coming through the middle, and then find those short, sharp counters that you ultimately saw, even if you had to bring it across his body to do it. He is a talented guy.

That's a powerful tandem between him and Ben Davison. Now, in terms of what might be next as the right call, whether it's Bud Crawford or someone comes up from 135, I don't really know. But I got to tell you, Taylor is a guy that I did not want to like because he was beating favorite boxers of mine or ones I really knew better and appreciated but dude he is he is frighteningly good very scary couldn't really match Ramirez on the inside for that inside space but would take his time and find absolute lasers to drill him with and that made a big difference

in the end you mentioned Davidson such a perfect pairing for him. Davidson's a really smart coach, but you need the student to be able to carry out, and I think what we learned is that Taylor, to the footwork to what you said, the IQ, but also the toughness, which he showed against Rougarou when his eye got shut, it is a perfect pairing. Let's not forget Davidson's game plan in that first Fury-Wilder fight, Luke,

was to get Fury to have an active guard, which means constantly move his hands, and what they wanted to do was take away Wilder's jab. They thought Wilder was most dangerous with the right hand when he's using it as a one-two coming over the jab. So Fury's active guard kept freezing Wilder, and to a certain

degree, you saw some of those game plan work against Ramirez. ramirez likes to get inside on you but he uses the jab to enter they almost completely took away ramirez's jab for two-thirds of this fight so credit to them a brilliant game plan but also a brilliant execution and when we talk about what's next now jack catterall of the uk is the mandatory next for taylor so that could happen next but i don't think it will because Bob Arum has a lot of motivation, Luke. Now that Terrence Crawford didn't get the Manny Pacquiao fight,

all reports are showing that Bud Crawford's contract with Top Rank ends in October. If Bob wants to not only get one more fight out of Bud, but Luke, you could argue, try to convince Bud to stay put with Top Rank and not go over to PBC land and chase Spence and all the other big welterweights. Giving him a big fight with a big name who just came off the big win and Taylor would make a ton of sense. Luke, I want to ask you, because you do get the X's and O's in both sports.

You know, you see a lot of instant reaction on Twitter of, oh God, you know, great win by Taylor, but Bud Crawford's going to send him to the woodshed. Could Taylor beat Crawford? Is this, it's not a 50-50 fight. Bud Crawford's pound for pound top, you know, three at worst, right? Is this a fight Taylor could win in your eyes?

Because Crawford could do everything, switch stances, brawl, box. We know how great he is. That's a tough fight. You know, that's a hard fight to win. I'll be honest. I would favor pretty strongly Bud to win that. But listen, man, if you unify a weight class at this point and you want to go up to challenge somebody special in the division above you, you have absolutely earned that right. You've earned enough respect for us to say, well, you know, we can't say who we don't have to. We don't have to say things we don't believe.

But we should also have a measure of humility that when someone accomplishes something that great, they might be capable of things that perhaps skeptics should have a little bit more of a humility about in declaring what they can't actually do. So I don't favor his chances against Bud Crawford. Dude, to me, Bud Crawford's timing and the narrow windows in which he can land is uniquely special, even among greats in boxing right now. But you do what this guy did. Give him a shot. Fuck it. Let's see what happens. So also Rougarou Regis Progray wants Taylor next.

Just to update, Progray did sign a one-fight deal with PBC. We saw him on the undercard of what? Was it the Gervonta pay-per-view? Then he fought for Triller for one, and now he's a free agent. So I'm wondering, Luke, if there is... I don't mean to make this all about Crawford, but this is an important topic now. Is there enough in the top-ranked stable?

If Bob could sit down with Terrence Crawford and say, I could get you Taylor next, I can get you Rougarou in the future, I could get you maybe Teofimo in two years moving up. I wonder if there's enough there to keep Crawford there. If Bob says, I will also work as hard as I can dealing with Heyman to make the, you know, the one-time Spence fight. I don't know, Luke. I don't know. I don't know if it's enough, but it's interesting.

I would say, yeah, I don't know either. But I'd be curious. Listen, here's what I'll say. I don't know if Bob wants to be in the Bud Crawford business anymore, even if you can find clever ways, now that you've got some of these interesting things happening where you could keep him under wraps. I don't know if Bob really cares about that at this point, given some of the rhetoric that he's put out there.

I don't know how much of that is just Bob negotiating in public. I don't know. But, you know, I tend to think that they might give him one more and then just let him walk. I don't think that they really want to keep... They don't want to keep this guy for another two years and just more of this bullshit. No, I don't find that the likeliest thing. But I will say, if they can find a way to make a Taylor and Bud Crawford fight,

you'll find me front row, right? That is a very, very interesting, and again, I think Taylor's got an uphill battle, but he's earned the right to dare to be great. I think it's pretty fair to say. Luke, quick off script here. I don't know if you saw for the press conference for this fight when Bob Arum came out and gave a scalding lecture to the crowd for wearing masks, saying COVID is over, take your effing masks off. We saw some even Canadian MMA journalists come out publicly and throw stones at him saying if Dana White said that he would be, you know, burned up. Your Dr. Luke Fauci, what were your thoughts on that?

Yeah, I saw a little bit of that. I hadn't paid a whole lot of attention because Bob is old and just yells things like, you know, a goat bleeding at the edge of a cliff. Listen, Ariel's right. You know, if Dana White said something like that, we'd probably all be burying him. You know, Bob, Bob's totally irresponsible for that I mean listen you know DC United game was outside last night and they said if you're fully vaccinated you don't have to wear a mask I didn't even bring a mask to the fucking ballpark damn right I don't know these guys yeah well I believe in science and I believe it works I'm just sort of pointing out declaring that the pandemic is over it's not over

for people who have you know compromised conditions it not over for people who are not vaccinated. It's not over for a lot of people. It's not over for Canadians. It's a dumbass thing to say. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Enough COVID talk, Luke.

Let's talk fights. Yeah. Let's talk more COVID because that's what really this week. Morning COVID with a K. Do you think that the people would prefer more Paul brother talk or more COVID talk on our show? It's very close. Well, if the Paul brothers got COVID, they might want us to talk about that. But short of that, I don't know.

All right, let's get to what happened here on Showtime on Friday. Not the most entertaining show, if we can be candid with you. I thought, in fact, it was pretty boring. But in the main event, Chris Cyborg stops Leslie Smith in the fifth round. Now, Cyborg tweeted me yesterday to challenge me a little bit nothing too serious but in the win bc wasn't her luke alert alert it wasn't her wait wait the land no no no no no hold on hold on hold on she does have people who control her account but you can tell there's a difference a bit in the english look at the way she was tweeting there's a there's

a there's a follow-up there where it sounds a little bit more like her but in either case it doesn't matter i'll just tell you what the whoever was in control of that account said there was no denying that cyborg was the one winning that fight up until the fifth late fifth there was no denying that she was the one who had showed the best skills we could go on and on from here but to me it looked like in real time she was maybe slowing down a bit now whoever was in control of cyborg's twitter was saying okay but the plan was the fifth the plan was to work on the things in camp give it some time and then let it you know take over late but was i mean here's the thing bc she stopped her with 10 seconds left it wasn't like they came out in the fifth early trying to really put her away it just kind of happened a little bit later.

So I'm not here to suggest that's not true. I don't even know if that's the best game plan. What is your read on a good win by Cyborg? Make no mistake. Is she slowing down just a little? First of all, slowing down is natural. So we have to wake up to that. Okay.

You know, so yes, I believe I saw a little bit of that. But I also saw a lot of Leslie Smith's, you know um so it yes i believe i saw a little bit of that but i also saw a lot of leslie smith's um you know look what you and i talked on hcbs sports hq on this show you know like how do we kind of talk a game plan for leslie smith to win here and we're like you know uh look at the odds there really isn't one right but you know smith did work on her defense and she was very outspoken about that she She was too aggressive in their first fight, and she got finished in the first round. I want to give Smith credit. A very responsible defense here.

Was it survival mode? Well, look, I don't believe she had the firepower to win this fight under any circumstance. So, yes, it turned into survival mode. So that's just me saying other opponents in this spot would have put themselves in spots to get finished. Smith was more defensively set up and trying to, you know, and had good stamina and all that. So it took Chris longer than normal or than it should have been. I didn't see Chris go out of her way to go for the finish. So there were times, Luke, including to open round five,

where I'm like maybe Cyborg's content to just get a win here. I mean, Valentina Shevchenko sometimes is content to get a win, right? You know, like, look at the Karmush rematch. She's just sort of like, all right, we're going to go the distance here. To Chris's credit, she's still got the finish. So I'm not here to say, you know, it's caught up with her, but it's naturally going to catch up with her to a certain degree. Would Cyborg of five years ago have finished this earlier?

Yes, probably. Smith made it tougher. Cyborg of five years ago have finished this earlier? Yes, probably. Smith made it tougher. Cyborg still got the win. She's 35. It is what it is at the end of the day, Luke. Whether she attacks you on Twitter or not, she's going to slowly go in that direction. I just don't think they got anybody under roster

that has the firepower chin game plan to exploit that, Luke. And that's really the difference, right? I didn't get this. Again, whoever wrote the tweet, I didn't get the sense they were pissed but they just wanted to put their their impressions out there I mean to your point here's why I come down on the cyborg thing and thinking about it and taking some of that feedback to me is she as offensively potent and let's say dangerous in a moment as she was three four or five six years ago yeah maybe not before there was a little bit of like like even when this even in the Invicta Marlou's Kunin fight man she was

tossing her around you just were waiting for the referee to show a little bit of mercy Leslie Smith was not in that kind of a position she was losing all four rounds heading into the fifth but she was not I mean yes I know there was suplex, but it didn't have the same devastating feeling. Like Marlou's looked helpless. Leslie looked a little bit overmatched, but not helpless. I didn't feel like that was the case necessarily. So I'll say this, to me, I don't know if Cyborg, as you indicated, these athletes are going to age and reconciling that is not an insult. It's just trying to figure out what effect it might be having, minimal or otherwise. So I don't think she's quite the offensive dynamo that she was in the sense of its dangerousness.

However, I will say this, BC. I think you might agree with this. While we don't have that same level of devastation, that great white shark feeding kind of feeling, she's really cleaned up a lot of the mistakes like she has she takes her time you know she has a good jab she doesn't get hit a lot she doesn't get taken down a lot she's really never hardly out of position that's gonna keep her like to me the mistakes that have cost her which is minimal but she has really raised that up so to me that's going to make her competitive

for a very long time look if she was still the the aggressive brawler from the strike force days or even you know early invicta she would she would be you know she would be found out sooner at this age but she has built a style to her credit that aids in longevity she has built a a style now built upon, yes, she's still putting, look, the thing at the end of the day is, what makes her special? Every shot is a power shot. I mean, seriously, every shot moves and hurts her opponents, but she somehow built herself efficient within that window in the past few years. I started to see it in Invicta. I certainly saw it through her UFC run, the Nunes fight, notwithstanding where she went for broke. But, you know, it's not dissimilar to Floyd Mayweather in his late 30s, Luke, who became more of a pot shotter, but it was a very effective, smart sort of make you miss counter

once. This wasn't, you know, pretty boy Floyd coming out with flurries to finish you like he was doing at lightweight, you know? So it's how you adapt and this is why i always stop to give chris cyborg the full credit of being a professional of always being in the best possible shape and being a lot smarter than she gets credit for luke in terms of her involvement yes uh i also think we should also say for leslie smith i did think she showed a lot of it was weird right because in some waysly, that was like the best Leslie Smith we'd ever seen. She was just up against someone where she couldn't get to. I mean, I always talk about in jiu-jitsu, it's a very simple way for folks who've never trained to understand.

And, you know, the argument is much more complicated than this. But as you're learning jiu-jitsu, as you get better at it, it's survive, defend, and then attack. Those are the tiers. And, of course, you're going to go back and forth between all three of them depending on what kind of match you're in or what the situation may be but like early in your when you start out you're just surviving a lot then you get better at some of the defense and then you can begin to really work your game once all those other pieces come into play that's a sort of simplistic roadmap but it gives you a sense I thought in this one, her defense was a lot better. She didn't get overwhelmed by some of the combinations. She was able to circle away or

break contact whenever she needed to. It was pretty good in that way. It's just she couldn't get that next offensive gear going while Cyborg was able to just mix things up. Not in a way that sent the fight to the finish immediately, but over time, you know, made a difference in the end. And to your point, BC, I don't know who the hell Bellator's going to line up in front of her at this point to give her a run. Blenko gave Leslie Smith a loss. She couldn't last, what was it, two rounds, I don't think, with Cyborg.

So they're in a tough spot. Cyborg called out Kat Zingano afterwards. And, you know, I get why, name-wise, she would want that fight. But, you know, how do you see that one ending, Luke? Not well for Kat Zingano. I mean, Kat's not the same striker anymore. This ain't the Misha Tate fight anymore, right? Like, you know, she can wrestle.

She's tough. She's big. But, yeah. Yeah. Listen, Cyborg has managed her career insanely well. You know, not only is she very, very talented, but I think she's going to Bellator at a time when, you know, could she still be in the UFC and win?

Yeah, probably. Probably she could. Amanda Nunes, I don't know, but probably she could otherwise. But she's going to an organization where she's still going to get some top-ranked women who have done some interesting things in the sport, but aren't necessarily the same kind of threat to her in that way. And, you know, she's got all these abilities built in. So she's going to keep that belt, I think, for a long, long time.

And she's going to get paid for it. Like Cyborg has played this game actually pretty well. It just, I don't think it's unfair to say, you know, it's probably not the same menace over the division that we thought it was, you know, half a decade ago. I don't think that's at all crazy. Don't put that out there. Very fair of you, Luke Thomas.

All right, let's get to our last and final major topic here. This news came to us, I believe it was announced by Pacquiao. I saw it from Mike Coppinger, but just the same. Manny Pacquiao. Manny Pacquiao, can you believe this? Manny Pacquiao is 42, BC. How this man gets out of bed without creaking and aching like I do, I'll never know. And on top of that, he's going to fight Errol Spence, BC.

This will be a welterweight contest about 147 pounds August 21st it will be on pay-per-view it will be in Las Vegas I don't know what the venue is yet but here we go BC alright let's get your reaction to this pretty interesting news and for folks who are MMA fans kind of help them

set the context here a little bit well look we didn't see this coming and that's what makes this a really cool announcement and super special. Boxing did not adapt, obviously, to the quarantine nearly as well as UFC did. Some of that is the disorganization and the reliance upon the live gate, but that's why we are now seeing Wilder Fury 3, all these sort of super-ish fights come together in a quick succession. I mean, what a spring and summer we're going to have in all of combat sports.

But Luke, this one feels really special because Manny Pacquiao is the hot ticket right now among the elite welterweights. You know, he's the biggest name you can find. Floyd's not coming back and fighting these guys. Manny's the biggest name you can find, and it would still matter if you beat him. Why? Because although it was two years ago, two years ago, summer of 2019, Manny Pacquiao went in there on pay-per-view against unbeaten Keith Thurman, knocked him down, took his title, won a close but high-paced action pay-per-view main event, and got back into the top 10 pound for pound, and basically did things at this point in his career that fighters don't do. I mean, seriously,

like Pacquiao, you know, what's weird, Luke, is, wow, I had a, you know, Greg Bobby Brady moment there with my voice. What's weird here, Luke, is that, you know, Pacquiao's ultimate claim to fame in his, you know, in his fighter obituary one day is boxing's only eight-division champion. He accomplished that in 2011, right? Ten years ago, he had already hit his sort of mountaintop, extreme Hall of Fame, all-time great moment. But he's been sneaky adding on all these extra wins, two against future Hall of Famer Tim Bradley, like all these here and there. Yes, he lost to Floyd, but that Keith Thurman win was, it was just massive and eye-opening.

And look, Luke, this wasn't the same guy against Jeff Horn, who was probably not taking that fight as seriously, was doing the full-time senator thing. You know, I think that that was a wake-up call that, you know, at this level, it's like, we talk about activity. Conor McGregor is only going to be great again if he can stay active and just become a real fighter again. Someone like Manny almost needs this long time off in between, and he needs to take it seriously and put in serious camps and because he's so extra special and he's got really large calves he can he can muster himself up to a level that you can't count

him out luke i cannot count him out in this fight what i favor spence of course is there the potential that this is a little bit too far off to chew for manny where he could get stopped late in this fight it is in play spence is that great he's a finisher and it has been two years since we've seen Manny but his name still matters beating him still matters you look at Spence's recent resume like you know this is what's separating Spence from Bud Crawford right now is the resume if he could add Manny Pacquiao at a time where we're not coming in here saying oh Manny Pacquiao's washed no we're coming in here add Manny Pacquiao at a time where we're not coming in here saying, oh, Manny Pacquiao's washed. No, we're coming in here saying, Manny Pacquiao's a sneaky live dog, even two years later.

I mean, this is a big fight. Look, this fight matters, right? PBC on Fox pay-per-view. It matters. I'm really happy to see it. It's incredible. I mean, if you had told me, I think we said this on CBS Sports HQBC, if you had told me after Mayweather versus Pacquiao that basically Floyd would go on,

I know he fought Broner, but he would basically go on, retire, then fight MMA fighters. Huh? He fought Birdo, not Broner. Sorry. Are you talking about Manny or Floyd? Andre Birdo, yeah, sorry. Sorry, the Haitian sensation. Okay, but you get the idea.

He fought him and then essentially retires and then fights Conor McGregor and now YouTubers and exhibitions in Florida. And that Pacquiao, since then, would go on to lose to Jeff Horn and yet somehow rebound to put together wins over Lucas Batiste, Adrian Broner, excuse me, and then Keith

Thurman. And now he's fighting Spence at 42 years old while Floyd is, you know, out here tangling with Logan Paul. I would have never in a million years believed it. I thought for sure with his shoulder and the whole thing and all the excuses then that, you know, the train was kind of coming off the tracks a little bit because, hey, he's 35 35 36 or you know it's he's a little bit older and that's just what happens with boxing and blah blah blah blah blah and then here we are dude his he is heading into this fight i hope folks know with a record of 62 7 and 2 this will be his 72nd professional contest, that is an iron man who is out there. He turned pro. He turned pro when I was a junior

in high school. That's ridiculous, dude. He turned pro in January of 1995. I was in ninth grade. I was in ninth grade when he turned pro. That's stupid. It's stupid. Our producer, Man maniche is reaching

out and saying he was two years old that's probably true luke i mean it's just ridiculous um so so i just want to point out so i just want to point out last thing for him to be in this position he is still for folks who may not know he is very much ranked at the very top near well this weight class welterweight 147 it's a fight that you could absolutely justify making in terms of a competitive space and everything else. I'm happy to see it. It's not Spence Crawford, BC. Boxing doesn't give you what you want.

It gives you the stocking stuffers and the door prizes. Not a bad door prize. But look, I like this better than Pacquiao against Mikey Garcia, which was in talks. And look, just one thing, Luke. I mean, we all saw Barry Bonds hit 73 home runs and hit 370 as like a 40-year-old. I mean, we saw some ridiculous things.

I want to believe what I'm seeing. I don't know, Luke. But even under that, guys, even under that, if you wake up, if you're Luke Thomas, you just wake up and be like, everybody's doing something, right? It's still insanely impressive that Pacquiao can carry his speed, his chin that he can still be a difficult guy

to box because of the angles and the IQ I mean seriously whether you have suspicions or not to be able to linger this long and be this great still, dude you don't freaking see that, I mean this is a he's taking the kind of damage Luke where

seriously, where it's like, I mean he this is a... I mean, he's taking the kind of damage, Luke, where... Seriously, where it's like... I mean, he was in wars. Dude, him at like featherweight and stuff against like Marquez, Barrera, you know, Morales. Dude, he was in freaking wars, bro. And he's still doing this. I mean, you do at some point have to go, this is a special alien in terms of this great sport. This ridiculous great sport that we've seen.

So I know people on Twitter that don't really know. We're like, oh, what a money grab. Spence going in there against the old guy. This may actually be a good fight at the end of the day. Also, BC, if we end up going to this, this is the same weekend as Cannibal Corpse and Dying Fetus in the same

card. I mean, come on, bro. Come on. Are we going to go? Are you going to be a man about it and go with me? Well, it's not a Showtime fight, so I don't think they'll send us, Luke. Are you saying if CBS Sports HQ sends you and I out there, there won't be MK documentary cams following us, okay? See, here's the thing, though. Here's the thing.

I can shoot stuff for the MMA documentary crew because I feel like Spence Pacquiao plus you in the cannibal corpse pit that's documentary material it really is well will I be willingly allow Satan to enter my body by stepping into that Luke

they're not Satanist they don't give a shit they don't even believe in Satan it's just about having a good time yeah is Gwar going to be there Luke I hope They don't even believe in Satan. It's just about having a good time. Yeah. Is GWAR going to be there, Luke? I hope. I hope.

I hope. All right. We'll see what happens. Those are our five major topics here for the day. It's time for you to ask us questions. Excuse me. It is time for DMs from dogs. So we put up a post every Sunday on Instagram where we ask you to give us your questions.

The producers pick five, and then we go from there. All right, BC. From Skybound Fitness, is Rob Font perhaps the most unheralded rise to the top of a stacked division in recent memory? No. Was it Vittori somewhat somewhat unexpected yes yes let's think back in recent ufc modern history of somebody who worked their way to either the title

or a title shot or elite contention where three four five fights earlier you'd be like hell no is there is there a good comparison here luke maybe early kenny florian um he turned out to be a title contender across two weight classes um fair i'd say surprising who got a title shot or like a title that like oh blachowicz is i think i think everything about blachowicz is a little bit surprising that's a great call that's a great ass call right there yes i, I've been like, look, I've been going over that Adesanya fight just to see everything. Like, what did I not understand about the guy? And I came to this conclusion, dude. Like if I, I told everyone on the live chat, this, I watched his first Manoa fight on this screen and his second Manoa fight on this one where he got much better.

And I watched round one, round one, two, two, three, three to see the differences. They're not huge differences, but the subtle shifts have made a dramatic difference in his game. He's a guy. Dude, there's a lot of these guys, man. We've been saying, you know. Anthony Smith. Anthony Smith. Anthony Lionheart Smith. Yeah, I know he keeps winning, and that just drives you crazy because you don't understand why he wins.

See, Luke, this is what people don't get. See, if you didn't know better and you watched this show, you'd probably think, who does BC not like the most? Canadians, Japanese MMA, you know, Anthony Smith. No, I love all them, Luke. I just don't like you and that's the point of this game, right? Come on, you know? All right, which is fine because you joined my family and also not liking me,

but the point still stands that Anthony Smith at 205 anyway, not necessarily 185, I think has exceeded certain expectations. There's been a few of them. On the women's side, dude, Carlos Barza getting back here is fucking insane. Like, I would not have predicted this four or five fights ago that we'd be here in this position. I agree with that, too. Great calls.

Also, I love Brendan Schaub. I'm just trying to rib you. I know he's your boy, right? What? Schaub is your boy. I think we're going to see him in Miami. I'm going to bring all this shit up, bro. Java bros.

Can I join the Java Jerks Club? That'd be great, right? No, you're not welcome. I'm pretty thick nowadays, Luke. My wife, by the way, read uh the java jerks club that'd be great right no you're not welcome nowadays luke i bet my wife by the way read me the riot act yesterday she's like what did she say she call you a fat bastard kind of yeah i won't go into details because it's private but yeah she did all right maybe she's right okay you know what you gotta get part of that thick boy bike club that's what you gotta do okay uh all right from at greg leach 99 how does the ufc justify giving zhang wiley a title shot over carla esparza given the one-sided nature of her fight with thug rose

i completely agree bc you know how i feel about rematches there's a place for them but just because somebody lost and they had it and it'd be a good rematch or like for whatever reason other than the terms of the previous fight itself you want to make it happen then just say that because the case for zhang wai-li is zero there is no case for her to get a rematch well the case for her is that she's a you know growing chinese star in a market that they want to do big things in yeah which is not an argument for a rematch it's no i'm not justifying, but I'm saying that's a big part of it. Mixed with that fight has potential, Luke, and I think the rematch would be close.

I think it would be similar to Ioana and Rose, where one was a walkthrough, two was more of a representation of their actual abilities, and it was a five-round tactical sort of thriller. You know, there's that potential that Rose Whaley, too, could be that, right? But to your point rose went in there and you know ran through her why do we need to run it back i agree i think we will see it soon though but i think you're going to get both with an interim fight first rose against carla who's very deserving and i don't know what what is a good um opponent for for whale, in your eyes, if she does not get the title next? Ooh.

She could fight Yan Xiaonan. Let's look at the strawweight top ten, Luke. I'm loading it up right now. She could fight Yan Xiaonan. She could fight Dern. There's a few fights. Well, Xiaonan just took a hard L there, Luke. So did Zhang Weili. Yeah, well, yeah.

There was damage, though. You know, Klau Yeah, well, yeah. There was damage, though. You know, Klaja? Yeah, yeah. If Nina Ansaroff's now Nunez is a little bit more ready to get back out there, that's one you could do. Hibas? Tisha? No, not Tisha.

She's got COVID issues. Who does? You didn't see this? Who are you talking about? it amanda amanda he boss oh man i didn't know that she got it they had to delay their fight they had to delay the nunez excuse me they had to delay the he boss he'll fight uh it's off now for the second time because she got covid for the second time yeah keep not getting shots people keep not getting vaccinated it's a smart idea i promise um so it's off it's off they're not gonna do it i guess doesn't take away how heartfelt her dad's commitment to that ink was tell you what i hope one day the same tattoo for your kids how

about that one day you do something elaborate to show oh Oh, I'm getting a tattoo. I'm getting a tattoo of my daughter. That just shows how hot this basement is. I hope you commit, Luke, to doing something beautiful for your daughter. And then somebody like you with a microphone in their basement with sweaty pit stains is like, wow, that's shitty art. You know, you look like the character powder that someone glued a wig and bad beard to. I don't know if it's bad. Look, by the way, I've always had problems growing shit. That's why at McDonald's that time when I had that date coming up, I wore the bandaid over the goatee because I finally got it in.

It was growing. This is like career best for me right now. And you're just shitting on it every day. All right. Yeah, it's pathetic. I mean, it's the worst. I mean, I don't know. I don't know if I'd go pathetic it connects it finally connects luke

i always said i would get a i would do a cycle of of like what's my favorite steroid stanazol if you shoot stanazol right into my cheek right here when i'm sleeping stanazol and you can guarantee a a beard coming out without the the bitchits. I would get in on that, Luke. You got to get on trend, too. You don't want to just blast and cruise. All right, let's go to AAA1017. This is actually an interesting question. How will Leslie Smith be remembered in MMA history? That's a great question.

Well, Luke, can you update me on what really happened with her exit from ufc and all the labor stuff so i have a full picture of this so basically uh god i have to go back and look exactly what the issue was she had an opponent she weighed in and she had an opponent who uh i think missed weight and either she wanted some kind of compensation or she refused to take the fight. And based on whatever legality they had, they let her go. I think they paid her for her purse and everything else like that.

Like, they didn't just send her packing with no paycheck. They did what they did for Diego. Like, they gave him his full purse, like, your Reebok money, whatever, just go away. They gave him go-away money. But I think that her claim was, and, you know, I don't want to weigh in on it. That's what an arbitrator is supposed to do, but she tried to file a labor dispute claim that she

believed she was let go, not for any of these other issues, but because she had been organizing on behalf of unionization efforts for the fighters. So she tried to get that labor dispute pushed up the actual chain of the National Labor Review Board and the whole nine yards. But you understand, a lot of these things can be administrative. A lot of these things can be political. The guy in charge, essentially, of her case, because her case got moved, was a Trump appointee. But now, here's the deal. That dude is gone.

Now Biden has replaced him with his guy. So if someone wanted to challenge it, there's actually a reasonable case to be made that you're here in front of somebody who is very sympathetic to the causes of aggrieved labor that doesn't mean she would win but potentially it'd be something else so she believes basically that she got the axe for trying to um unionize the the labor force but she probably did she probably did um i'd like to see her go down to some kind of normal ray but but if Dana has any hand in this, she probably won't be remembered in MMA history, though. No, seriously, Luke, why don't you answer this question?

Yeah, I think in terms of fighting, you could say that she was one of the figures who I think orbited the more established champions of the eras in which she fought. I think she gave some of them some pretty good fights. She had accomplished a fair amount herself, but I definitely think, based on what has happened in her career, she'll be remembered as something of a pioneering, guiding force inside the cage

for the time in which she competed, but something of a firebrand outside of it. She's outspoken. She's obviously committed to self-improvement. Here she is fighting and training and getting a post-secondary education and, you know, fighting on behalf of the athletes in a way that no one else would. She's the one that asked Kobe Bryant that question at the fighter retreat about organizing and everything else. Like, she was the one pushing those buttons.

I think it'll be the combination of the two when it's all said and done. I do want to say, though, that, like, I commend that. And, you know, she had to take an L for that, but somebody's got to stand up, Luke. So at the end of the day, I hope she's remembered. I hope there's that asterisk. Pretty good fighter, had some ups and downs, whatever, but I hope she gets the after-the-fact recognition for being that brave. I mean, look, to to make change somebody's got

to stand up on the hill and and get mocked right and get get stuff thrown at she had the balls understand there's not a lot of people at any line of work media or otherwise who can challenge ufc and survive it it's usually something of a death sentence not an immediate execution but like over time it ostracizes you from enough parts of the major elements inside mma it can damage your career she has managed to you know find a way to hang on in a pretty spectacular way and so you know credit to her it's just her resume or i should say her legacy i think will be both of those things it will not be one or the other uh okay from telvin key papa wow you got it luke you normally you hate that guy you you got it you nailed it well everyone has the worst name ever

including me no he's hawaiian luke luke could you give him some respect he's hawaiian he's hawaiian okay well his name is a little better than all right did valerie lareda lose some of her star power bc yeah we didn't get into any of the bellator undercard here um she wasn't she was good this she was going to be on my uh odds and ends okay uh well why don't we hit that now um temporarily yes but it's more about what she does next that could completely regain now here's two things to her credit. It's really early in her career, all right? And, you know, that fight was wild and sloppy and, you know, had dramatic turns. But, you know, she found out, as we did, that there's some, you know, there's a lot that needs to be worked on. And that's not uncommon when you get somebody who's way more marketable than they've yet proven they're good. You know, it can be an up and down

the balance. We are in a sport in mixed martial arts where losses are in some ways welcomed early on I mean you've got to grow from this you know it's not like it's not like boxing in that regard um she was pretty on brand in her IG responses since the loss Luke which were very scantily clad pictures including the middle finger launched in them so she's basically like f y'all um the proof will be in the pudding of whether she can win luke if she can win fairly consistently in this game she's got a very smart marketing plan on how to be a star so um temporarily yes star power lost but we can't we can't speak to the end game luke until we see what happens next yeah i i would say this man let me just caution any fighters out there who may see this

like everybody wants to jump to the front of the queue right away because it makes all the sense in the world if if you don't think about the longer big picture which is to say dude like making shit money on regional fight cards, fighting people who you might be to be better than, or, you know, no one knows about toiling in obscurity. Let's say ABC toiling in obscurity. It feels pointless and it feels like it will hold you back. And it feels like you can't support yourself. And I'm not here to tell fighters how to live their lives and how they should arrange their finances, but you can see like, oh, well, what if I could just get those same fights and then just do it under the bright lights of Bellator where I can make a ton of money or not a ton of money, but more than I ordinarily

would be given the circumstance and blah, blah, blah. Okay. But here's the problem. If you do that one, Bellator can do it in ways that UFC, UFC could not accommodate CM Punk. They could not accommodate someone with that level of skill on their roster because you need other people of commensurate skill for them to fight. They couldn't really do that. You need soccer moms, Luke. You need some freaking soccer moms, okay? You do. Well, here's the thing. Bellator is a little bit more capable of that. They can play with the margins because it's a little bit more flexible in their model. But at the same time, dude, when you are 3-0 or 3-1 or 4-0 or 4-2, whatever,

I know we see a lot of guys come to UFC with records of 5-0 when they're in their contender series, but those are the studs that were probably going to make their way anywhere. Anyway, you got to understand, if you're three fights or four fights into your career, you probably are not very good and it's going to take you a long time to get good. You should do that in obscurity you should do that in a way where there's not this pressure on you to be something you are not like i saw some good things in terms of valerie's toughness that were i thought pretty impressive but there were major major jujitsu developmental skill issues there were major fight iq issues

that you but do you remember her corner in the second round dude they read her the riot act oh they put it on her yeah and i thought i thought they were utterly justified i think my they were like enough of the spinny shit mother effer right i mean they were yeah they were fucking they were up front with her and they were right everyone whoever that guy was was a thousand percent correct so So to me, it's like, dude, take your time to get good. And then once you get good, go make money off of that. But you need to make sure that that nurturing process is right. So I don't want to hammer Valerie and say, oh, the sky is falling. The sky is not falling. But it is a little bit instructive that people are

like, oh, there's this about her, there's's that about her and now it begins to define who she is in the public consciousness let people do that when you've got a little bit more of a developmental progress to show it's my firm belief what's interesting is i had i had said you know why is this fight not on the main card now it ended up being on the main card because of an injury but um you know there's a great argument of why it shouldn't have been and why moving forward until she can put a few wins together, you have to be careful, Luke, of Sage North cutting her, right? You know what I mean?

You got to be careful of doing that, of getting too high on the marketing side without allowing someone to grow and make mistakes and do that. Luke, in two years, will she be main eventing Bellator cards? Will she be main eventing BKFC cards? Will she be out of the sport? I mean, will she be with the UFC? We don't know. We don't know.

Yeah, we don't know. I would guess she would be in Bellator. But, you know, you've got to let these things play out first. I saw Ioana commented on her IG and said, I'll be back at ATT next week. Let's get at it. So, you know, it could be worse for her, Luke. Okay? She's going to improve.

Fair enough. All right. From at lovely Rita Meter Maid 265. Where would I be without her? Right, Luke? Right? What are your favorite guilty pleasure musicians or songs? Great question. Great freaking question.

Luke, I've gone on record many times and said look i'm sorry the the the the emo bc can get down with some dashboard confessional i don't care what you think i don't care what you freaking think about that you know it's a great guilty pleasure song though luke a great one i don't care if it's on i'm going for it leather and lace by uh don henley and stevie nicks i mean seriously, look, it's freaking spectacular. All right? I mean, you have the nerve to talk about my music.

Dude, it's guilty pleasure. We're talking about guilty pleasures here, bro. You're allowed to dip into, like, pop or country bullshit or whatever. I'll say for workouts, I will sometimes put on Deadmau5 a little bit just to get a little bit of a groove going sometimes. I'm trying to think of something goofy I listen to. I remember when I was a kid, I listened to a lot of goofy stuff. You know, I used to think all of Fleetwood Mac was a guilty pleasure, Luke.

I was wrong, okay? Yeah, it just sucks. No, no, it doesn't. You know what also is a guilty pleasure? I inherited some Journey vinyl. Oh, God. Dude, the live albums, Neil Sean on guitar, I mean, they rock, Luke. They freaking rock.

I'm sorry. They do. They do, all right? I'm not talking about the radio. I'd rather just go to jail. Luke, Steve Perry has pipes. I mean, seriously, he's got rocko level pipes i mean like like they like like the guy i mean say what you want at the end of the day the videos are corny

and every chick loves their songs and that was everybody's prom song but that's a guilty pleasure that i'm you know if no one's around luke you're gonna get down to that shit the only guilty pleasures i think i could really say that i have are the ones again it's just something to facilitate a workout so i'll put like it's the terrible grunge band I don't think they're grunge I don't know what the fuck they are I'll put occasional three days grace on the workout mix

it's just you know it's kind of like it's a little new metal-ish not quite I don't know what it is but it's not great but it's fun for a workout keeps you going is what I would say. Maniche jumping in. By the way, Maniche jumps in on the chat.

Jay Aaron used to just jump the fuck in, right? You know, Maniche is very discreet. Yeah, just talk to us. He's just very comfortable Jay is what I called him. He says no Pitbull or Kesha in those workout playlists, Luke? No. That's what Maniche said to you. No, no.

It'll never be. No, that's not guilty. By the way, I got a text from Jay Aaron last week that said, I know you keep calling Maniche the poor man's Justin Timberlake. And he was like, how about this? And he sent me all these like cover tracks that he's working on for this covers in minor album. Are you into this Pennington James movement or no, Luke? BC, why are you asking me questions like that? It's no more of a movement than my bowel movement. Luke, I'll be getting on a plane soon, and I will be meeting up at that undisclosed location with Jake, our documentarian, and I will be seeing a rough draft of Doc 3.

I know that Doc was aborted because of the COVID mishap there at Mohegan, but I hope it's quality, Luke. I'm crossing my fingers. Do you have any hope for it? Can we stop talking about this? Okay, that's great. All right, time for you to give us your silly shit. Let's do it.

Yeah, let's do it, Luke. So what do we do every weekend? Every week we scour the globe, Luke, for the highs and lows, the good, the bad, the ugly, all the in-between in combat sports and beyond. It's called Have You Seen This Shit? Um.

Oh, shit, Luke. I deleted the email with all the shit in it. I mean, can you give me a minute, Luke? Can you vamp for a second? Yeah. I know it's a live Yeah. I know it's a live show. Should we tell people what actually happened with the merch and who we'd love to blame? I mean, keep going,

Luke. Keep going, okay? I'm glad you came prepared. It's good. I know. Just give me like 20 seconds here, okay? Why do birds suddenly appear? Yeah, keep it going. You're doing well. Every time you are near, just like me, they long to be close to you.

Luke, we start in the UFC. Close to you. It's UFC fight night in Vegas, Luke. Lightweight Rafael Alphys. Close to you. It's UFC fight night in Vegas, Luke. Lightweight Rafael Alphys. Did you see this spinner Rooney he put on in the loss to Demir Ismagulov? Your thoughts? I don't know what a spinner Rooney is,

but this is a nice way to sort of grand B roll and explode to your feet. A spinner Rooney was made famous by a hall of fame, WWE wrestler Booker T Luke. This is ray monday who tweeted this out and and gave a nice spinaroonie reference it's break dancing luke okay yeah it's not what that is though it's freaking break dancing uh it wasn't the only break dancing we saw for ufc vegas this week flyweight bruno gustavo da silva uh he knocked out victor rodriguez, but afterwards, check out this, man. Yeah, I saw this. He's like an old-school B-boy.

Look at that, Luke. Yeah, on his head, no less, on the pavement. Well, Luke, he wasn't just impressive on his head. He was also impressive on the cage. Here's that knockout I mentioned of Rodriguez. Talk about a 1-2 on the money, right? Yeah, he just measures them. Bob, sits them right down.

He just measured them. It was nothing. It was academic. Grade the celebration, Luke. Yes, right? Pretty good. Pretty good. Yeah. Yeah, I give a solid B+. He got my attention, Luke. You know what else got my attention? Fat heavyweights, here we go. Your fight of the night on Saturday was Justin Taffa and Jared Vandera. Did you like this piece of business, Luke? Let's see.

Look at him get at it. Bro, just throwing hammers. Just two large men. It's like when Hardy calls, hey, Tui, you want a bang? That's what these guys did, right? Whose heart is this? All right. Hey, Luke, this is from last week's UFC card, UFC 262.

Check out Dan Marigliotta. Take this to the old... Oh, right to the pills. Oh, Charles Oliveira celebrating, but those belts are heavy. Those are some heavy-ass belts. We used to do this game.

You'll love this. When I was in the fraternity, we didn't play with everyone but with a few people and if you saw them anywhere and they weren't paying attention you could backhand them to the balls it was called sack whack and we would just do this all the time so i'd wait till my fraternity brother would be talking to some girl and i would walk past nonchalantly and just fucking backhand them right in the pills oh it was good times good times had by all i'm glad my dad paid for this education any of my friends listening to this knows that that pearl jam concert in 06 on the avocado tour when uh somebody's girlfriend punched me in the balls as a joke and i thought it was one of my friends so i spent the entire rest of the night wasted setting people up for like right hand right crosses to the package luke not probably

not my finest moment but uh good good show nonetheless the trick is when you can get shoulder to shoulder with them and they don't know and then you give them the old the old backhand they go bah right there oh man you can just crush them it's great tip on tip indeed hey luke a lot of people sending me this one championship highlight from jonathan hagerty leading off with the elbow spike that's some vicious bs right there yeah those are not allowed in certain tie rule bouts they the spiking elbow like that but um it is a part of it and that is fucking brutal geez that is like stabbing a mother mother effort wow luke yikes all right Wow, Luke. Yikes. All right. Hey, let's go over to Brave MMAF. Check out Nursultan Ruzabov. Luke, he's the guy on top, okay? He's in the triangle.

It's not fully set. Not even close to fully set. This is how you get out of a triangle, though, Luke, okay? Let's see. He just sort of good mornings deadlifts it. God darn, Luke. That is some pile drive. Wow.

He rolls through. He bridges over. And then he doesn't lock up the triangle till here. Let's see. One more time. Picks him up. Oh, it doesn't get him very out. Did he headbutt him?

I think he killed him, Luke. That is... Rectum damn near killed him. Wow. Hey, let's go to regional MMA. We're basically there. You know, let's check... You know, anything can happen in regional MMA.

Here's your knockout of the week, Luke. Shout out to CTE Society for hooking us up. Oh. Wow. Wow. God damn. society for hooking us up oh wow wow god damn you ever chopped down a tree and just yeah just wow and one fell swoop let me see this guillotine underhooks stays in place oh man he cuffed him on the way down too that was great okay all right hey topranked boxing from Las Vegas over the weekend. On the undercard, Javier Martinez sending Calvin Metcalf to the basement floor. And look at the convulsions, Luke. This was violent.

I mean, someone send him to the barber, please. First of all, he's kind of known for that. He's a journeyman that shows up on these top-ranked cards. But wow, Luke. Wow. Okay. I mean, send this guy to a hairdresser, please. For the love of Christ.

Hell of a right hand, though. Whew. Love it. Yeah, especially if you just stand right there. Hey, Luke, we talked about Josh Taylor scoring two knockouts. Here was the second one in round seven. Do you think this was clean and legal? I do.

I know some folks took issue with it. I didn't. I will say we didn't really talk about this at the top. I thought Bayless was a little much for me. A little handsy. He was not letting him wrestle. Well, Luke, look, I've always said that boxing referees have like strike zones similar to a baseball umpire.

You remember the Mayweather-Maidana series? The first fight had Tony Weeks as the ref, and it was kind of like a baseball umpire. You remember the Mayweather-Maidana series? The first fight had Tony Weeks as the ref, and it was kind of like a war in a way. Second fight had Kenny Bayless. There you go. You know what I'm saying? It was a boxing match. It fit Mayweather's style a lot more.

Yeah. They used to call Kenny Bayless Mayweather's personal caddy, sort of preferred referee. Well, he's got a style, Luke, all right? Let's keep it going here, Luke. Top-ranked star Vasily Lomachenko is going to be coming back soon against Nakatani, and he visited the Salt Bay, Luke. You into this guy?

I can't stand this guy. You think this guy bangs? You think this guy Fs, Luke? Dude, he probably does all those gross things that Rocco makes all his women do that makes me so angry at him. Yeah, involving a cup? No, not even that. He's so filthy and gross. I bet this dude does absolutely

gross things. What city does he work in? Does he have his own restaurant? I don't understand the Salt Bay phenomenon. I don't know where he's based out of. Maybe Turkey. This place is Dubai. He could be based out of there. This is in Dubai. Are you sure? This looks Vegas to me. 100%. This is Dubai. He could be based out of there. So this is in Dubai. Are you sure? This looks Vegas

to me. 100%. This is Dubai. 100%. I saw Connor visited him recently. Poirier was with him. He makes the rounds, Luke. You know this dude does the most insanely gross things in La Camita.

I'm not into it anymore. Let's go to Bellator 259, Luke. We talked about Hannah Guy getting the upset of Valerie Lareda Look at how she stuffed the spinny shit It was like a running kiss Did you see that? Wait what? Lareda was told to stop doing spinny shit

And then in round 3 Luke She went right back to the well But Hannah Guy stuffed it with a running kiss I don't see a kiss I don't actually see any kiss here. I see her using her face and her forehead to get Loretta's head backwards so she can then take her down. All right, well, it worked.

It worked, Luke. And after the win, look at Hannah Guy dancing on Loretta's grave. I did see this. Was this grounds for Loretta coming after? Would that have been acceptable? I'll say this. Listen, she earned it. She earned it.

She earned it the hard way. You can do that kind of stuff. I didn't realize her first name is a palindrome. That's interesting. Yeah. What is your favorite palindrome, Luke? Kayak? Taco Cat.

Race car? Taco Cat? Really? Okay. Taco Cat backwards is Taco Cat. All right. All right right it's interesting uh also on this undercard leandro higo uh took a you know somewhat disputed close win over caldwell but what was this luke the hell's this he's just posting on him dude we don't have a spot to talk about it on this show but you know darry i I thought Darian Caldwell should have won this fight.

It was close, but this proves that his style of getting inside your guard on the ground and doing nothing, the judges don't like that, Luke. You went dead in my ear. Hang on, hang on, let me switch. Let me switch. I can't hear you. Yeah, maybe you should charge that chip before the show, Luke.

I did. I thought I did over the weekend. Yeah, dude, he has now been outstruck from the bottom, losing two fights. I don't think I've ever seen that before. A high-level fighter losing two bouts in two different occasions, being outstruck from the bottom. Does he just not have a strategy when he takes people down? Because he's an incredible wrestler, but this is tough.

Man, he should have won this fight. Yeah, I don't understand what he's doing because at this point, said it before dude like his ground game is very very good his wrestling in particular is really really good but there's a lack of like he doesn't really pass a lot he does have some chokes but doesn't really force him so he has to kind of sometimes just gonna ride out the clock which makes him a little bit error prone plus there's there's no real stand-up. So it's just that. And that's enough to get the rest. It's enough to do what it's designed for, but it can't do anything else. And as you can see,

not enough to get the win here. Yeah, tough loss. Hopefully he can learn from this and come back a new man. Hey, Luke, people are sending me tattoos left and right to get you to rate their ink in honor of Mr. HeBoss. Here's this week's sending. Who got a picture of my belly tattoo?

That's creative there, Luke. Also, yeah, but that cat's butthole is majorly open. Would you call that an innie, Luke? Yeah, that's gross, I'll tell you that much. Can you imagine going to the tattoo guy and be like, I want a cat's butthole on my umbilical cord area? Luke, you know that weird Asian guy we feature a lot on this segment of the show who tries to do those things where he almost shows you his junk, but he doesn't?

The one whose hog is almost certainly a skin tag? This guy, I think he went too far this week. This was a little suggestive i mean here's a what are we here's a blindfold mentos uh experiment this is the and you have the balls to say i can't watch make you watch two girls one cup well this is one guy one bottle but he got the mentos into the coke lu Luke, and then we had an explosion. So fucking gross. This is the last time this guy appears on this show. Believe that. This guy's

got the muscle tone of a used condom. I mean, get him out of here. Alright, alright. That's, wow. Okay. Luke, we love front yard fights, too. I mean, you know, Kimbo Slice and Masvidal made their bones in the back yard, but check out this front row fight, Luke. Good God!

What? Who else wants some Adibo? You know what I'm saying, Luke? Wow. He was taking two on one? Yeah, this guy owns that neighborhood. He frickin' owns it, Luke. This guy, it looks like, dude, you know who it is? Watch. That's Steven Seagal.

That's Hood Steven Seagal. Look atal. That's Hood Steven Seagal. Look at him. That is Hood Steven Seagal. Yes. Wow. Marked for death, though. Just laid that guy out. Whew.

All right, let's keep it going. Luke, we got a problem on this show with too many people falling off roofs. Here's this week's entrance. Dude, I mean, you just can't. I don't know why. It's always people jumping off roofs on this fucking show. You're not going to make it. You fucking ape. Can't believe they're white.

BC. It's so out of character. There goes two perfectly good kneecaps. Look, that is not cool. I mean, how is this dumb fuck? How did they not get a trampoline? And he doesn't even run off the roof. He look like lightly walks like it's all hot and shit.

Oh, there's my back. Oh, I'm paralyzed from the waist down. Luke, I was looking at your Grindr account, and it said must love dogs and long walks on the beach. So we combined both for this one, Luke. Check this out. It's the dog. It ain't much, but it's honest work.

So the dog's looking for a spot, Luke, to drop down. But check out the artwork accidentally created here by this canine legend. Effortless. I mean, look, this is like all-time accidental coincidence, right? And then he dropped the deuce afterwards. And then he dropped the deuce afterwards. And then he dropped the deuce right after. I mean, I don't know. I mean, sometimes things happen,

like Tim Tebow winning all those games, and you're just like, it must be divine. Like, there must be some cosmic connection. How did this dog perfectly draw a unit right there? I mean, that's insane. All right. Hey, Luke, you know what? This is how we got crop circles remember crop circles like

the yes no no one does crop circle controversies anymore that was big when we were kids maybe it was just a dog looking for a place to dump could be hey look you know it's a growing phenomenon on the show uh dirty dancing fails i got another one for you this week oh hell fucking yes these two have had the time of their life luke wow look at these honkies yep bang look at these two never felt like this before yes yes yes i swear i mean it's the truth luke they owe it all to you all right hey we talk four of them together couldn't bench press the bar and look at this luke i want to prepare you for fury wilder 3 on july 24th dionte wilder is not fooling around he's coming for blood check out this like steven seagal hard to kill inspired workout video that he put out luke this is uh this is intense i mean how heavy you think that thing is

that's probably pretty heavy. Luke, he's coming for blood, okay? People love these rugged outdoor workouts, like when BJ Penn would grab the huge boulder or the stone or whatever and then drop to the bottom of the pool or the water and then walk across it. But it's like, in reality, what's he doing? This is a landmine press. You know, it's interesting,

but I don't know exactly what the carryover to boxing would be. Well, Rocky Balboa would chop wood in Moscow before the Drago fight, Luke, to get himself old school prepared. All right. Well, this is not all Wilder's doing to prepare. Luke, he's also working on his marksmanship. Jesus Christ. Yeah, right? Wow, Luke.

Okay. Actually, if you look. Hold on. Is there any way to blow that picture up? Let me see how he did on the target. Yeah, right? Wow, Luke. Okay. Actually, if you look. Hold on. Is there any way to blow that picture up? Let me see how he did on the target. Yeah, look closely. I could be wrong about this. Do you see how the grouping goes north to south?

What are you, a forensic scientist? Well, this is a general rule, BC. A general rule. If someone's grouping goes left to right, that means they're pulling the trigger each way, depending on which hand they are and which way the direction of the pull is. And if their breathing is bad, because you're not supposed to breathe or hold your breath,

the idea is that you inhale and you exhale, and then in the space in between, that's when it's a steady trigger squeeze to the rear. If you don't do that right and you breathe up and down, the rounds will reflect it in a vertical manner. So if you look here, my man's got trouble probably with his dad or he's just fucking doing this. Why do I feel like I'm on a first date with your wife right now, Luke?

Yeah, so he's got bad grouping there. Well, Luke, he's not the only one who goes to the semi-automatic shooting range for fun. All right, let's see. Oh, yes. He's got the only one who goes to the semi-automatic shooting range for fun. All right, let's see. Oh, yes. He's got the AK-47. With the El Chapo AK-47, as his subhead said right there. Looking thick and jacked, right? One of the most incredible firearms ever made.

Insanely, insanely durable. Super durable. Hey, you know what you big brown and me in miami should go to a shooting range like this bring the mk doc cams what do you think we can make we can make brendan shob a playable character in our mk doc universe we can do this i don't i don't think that we could no all right well did you know that shab and wilder are actually like bros like they get down with each other luke okay yeah but that's an old picture that's an old picture well in fact one time i appeared on beneath the bell and i presented this fact to brendan

let's go to the videotape right now by the way you and wilder did a couple interviews that's my boy too like there was magic in there oh dude that's my boy i love you guys afterwards dude i love i love wilder man he couple interviews. That's my boy, too. It looked like there was magic in there. Oh, dude, that's my boy. I love Wilder. You guys smash afterwards? Dude, I love Wilder, man. He's the man. He's the real deal. Alright, but this fight, look. By the way, you and Wilder did a couple interviews. Um, Luke. That's my boy, too. It looked like there was magic in there. Oh, dude, that's my boy. I love Wilder.

You guys smash afterwards? Dude. You know, it... You know, it takes a lot of guts to sit in front of a professional comedian and go for it, but he no sold the shit out of my joke there, Luke, okay? Yeah, yeah. You didn't get the old, I don't like you, I'm not going to answer your question, but you got one step from that. Like, I didn't even hear that shit.

Like, keep that out of my show. I'm telling you, the rematch is coming to Miami, Luke. It's going to be magic, okay? You thought BC versus Josh Thompson was a great crossover. This could be special, Luke, okay's going to be magic, okay? You thought BC versus Josh Thompson was a great crossover. This could be special, Luke, okay? Your thoughts? Okay. I doubt that, but we'll see.

Luke, it's good to see that there's still hunters and gatherers in this world. Check out this guy at the grocery store. I mean, he kills his food before he eats it, Luke. You got to be a big fan of that, right? Bro, if you roll up to the register with fucking arrows and all your shit, you're a hero in ways I cannot possibly describe. Also, what grocery store lets you fucking come in there with a bow and arrow? Russian grocery stores, apparently, Luke.

Look at this. I'm like, where in pensacola is this yeah wow okay i got one more for you luke who is having a better weekend than this fella on the subway check out can we zoom in on that jacket luke he's been this guy is basically being like look ladies i cannot tell you how fuck ready i am super fuck ready that guy is ready to bang luke that's it that's it right there all right he had a tough go in his in his marriage you know he's ready to let it all loose look that's the shit for this week it's probably apropos that i show off these while i'm marriage, you know, he's ready to let it all loose. Luke, that's the shit for this week. It's probably apropos that I show off these while I'm doing this, you know?

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. There you go. BC, time for odds and ends. What do you got for your odds and or ends? Hey, it kind of got, you know, shoved into the broadcast on Saturday, but 37-year-old Paul Felder officially announced his retirement while working

the show as an analyst, which he's very good at. Luke, here's the deal. It's not that this was a shocker or that, you know, fresh off of two tough losses, we didn't know, you know, this was inevitable, but I do like to take the time to applaud for how often we talk about on here, whether it's misguided or it's our role or not to say, oh, look at that fighter. He needs to retire. That's too many losses or damage. There are the rare times where a fighter gets ahead of it, knows it's their time to go and steps out and says, you know what? I had a great run, but it's over. Does Felder still have stuff left in the tank? Yeah, you would think so. He's a very good fighter. He's a fan-friendly fighter. He's made so many fun fights over the years. He's always been honest in his preparation and about his performances and all that, Luke. To see somebody who, granted, he's got a nice sort of spin-off second career here as an analyst,

but to see somebody do that ahead of time rather than afterwards, I do applaud that because it's very rare in this game that, you know, in the combat sports game where, inevitably, Luke, it takes more from you than it gives back. It's very rare where somebody, you know, does it on their own terms. So I was happy to see that for Paul Felder. He's come to terms with everything he's accomplished. He's gotten pretty damn far in this game, Luke. He was a very fun fighter, as I mentioned. Always enjoyed watching him. Love his analyst work. I do want to tip the hat and say congratulations on a great career and best of luck transitioning into the

into the second half which looks very bright you know the old Keith Richards lyric I'd rather walk before they make me run they'll make you run out of the game in this game and good to see Paul Felder going off on his own terms yeah no doubt about it and also if you if you thought oh man there's so many other good fights i think he could be in or i'd want to see him in and now we won't get those right perfect timing perfect timing that's exactly the way you should feel a fighter's career especially like one like paul like he gave it a go a really good go and got pretty far never got to a title shot and you know to build yourself back up there

it takes you know a certain amount of commitment that he just doesn't want to give to the game anymore and so while I still think he could be competitive and still win some big fights the fact that he has that left means that's all that damage that's all that ruin that's all that yes there could be good parts of it there's going to be some bad parts, too. He doesn't even have to worry about that. Let it go. Let it be. You did what you did. It's very, very special.

And, dude, this guy, you know, a stage actor to this to now commentating. Obviously, he didn't do stage acting at the highest level. I'm just sort of pointing out this guy's broad level of interest and how engaged he is. Yeah. This guy can do a lot of different things. If you can talk about fights and make money, not the same kind of money but some good coin do it do it trust me a quasi sort of you know title contender in a very deep division but he's got wins over edson barbosa stoppage win over charles olivera you know he beat james vick i mean he's done some things luke maybe the mike

perry loss hasn't aged fully well but you, he fought through a serious injury and kept gutting it out in that one. So always have respect for the red. The hell's his name? The red. I guess this shows how much respect I have for him. What the hell do we call him, Luke? I don't even know who we're talking about. I don't know.

Paul Felder. The Irish dragon. The Irish dragon. I always want to call him the red dragon, which is obviously Rory McDonald. Yes. The Irish dragon. Red King, I think is what he is. Red King, probably.

Dead wrong me, all right? Just every Friday, dead wrong me, please. I will go to a different one. So I think just a few weeks ago on the show, BC, we were talking about how Gordon Ryan had signed with one championship. Now, he was going to do MMA and grappling, and they had set up a Gordon Ryan versus Shinya Aoki match, which to me is like a

complete waste of time because I mean that's that's like that's that's a mismatch to an absurd degree uh in every way not even remotely competitive so I was like well I don't know about that but that's off in fact everything's off Gordon Ryan announced over the weekend and he wasn't trolling that he is taking an indefinite hiatus from competition. He's had long-standing, I guess, stomach issues. I don't know the exact biological condition. They say he went over it on the Joe Rogan podcast. I've not had a chance to hear it yet, but it's been something that's been lingering. He's just been kind of fighting through it, and whatever happened, I don't know, but it reached a point where he decided he can't train this way. He can't be in training camps this way. Um, and he's not really himself and he wants to

get whatever the medical issue is sorted before he can ever go back to competition, but he's not even sure when that is. So he doesn't want to officially retire because he doesn't know if it's a permanent condition, but it could in fact be permanent bc in which case you might never see him back i tend to think that won't be it i think that he'll find something but when how what it looks like what it does to him no clue it's kind of a kind of unfortunate set of news yeah a little bit of a curveball surprise right there um luke there are people that want your take on joshua fabia's public reaction to die Diego dumping him. Do you have any comments on this?

Because he dropped piles of shit on Diego. Dude, who cares? Can we just stop talking about this guy? For the love of God, who gives a shit? We'll never mention the school of self-awareness on this show again, okay? I've said before, dude, like, all of diego's problems on fabia is not fair to fabia but there's enough blame that you can put on him where we don't need to hear from him anymore we don't really i'm i'm good to i'm good to say if i never hear from him again

it'll be just fine it'll be just fine there won't have to worry about it whatsoever what if on the wheel of death i had three people you don't like waiting on on zoom and you picked that i know you don't want to interview and you had to pick one and interview them right there i could now add him to that list i'd rather just quit my job it's like look we got you wanna and we got no just kidding yeah that's it all right that's it i don't i don't i'm done i'm done all right bc i know you got to catch a bird so let's remind everybody thumbs up on the video hit subscribe you want to follow us on social morning combat's the same name everywhere same on youtube same on instagram same on twitter same on everything so there you go but me and bc have slightly different names between twitter and of course itself. If you want to email us for Wednesdays, fan submissions,

Friday's Dead Wrong, or anything else if you need to reach the show, morningcombat at gmail.com. That's going to be your place to go right there for anything you might need. If you want to get our existing merch, our existing merch is limited, BC, but we should be fair up about it. It is really nice. The shirts are high quality. It's great.

The glasses are nice. It's nice stuff i know that the access is limited to a lot of you but if you do have access to it it's really really great store show short store.show.com also if you want to try showtime you certainly may 30 day free trial if you like it you can keep it if not you can go to something else it's okay uh let's see we're back on wednesday with another show We'll have some other pieces of content out this week. Obviously, and the rest of the scheduled programming goes on as normal. BC, before we sign off, anything else good, sir?

No, I don't care. I don't have anything else. All right, well, with that in mind, we thank you for accommodating this unusual time. Wait, you want me to sing a song, Luke? You want me to go karaoke? Why do birds suddenly appear? We thank you for accommodating this unusual time. Wait, you want me to sing a song, Luke? You want me to go karaoke? Why do birds suddenly appear? All right.

With that in mind, that's Brian Campbell. I'm Luke Thomas. Thanks to Malka. Thanks to Showtime. Thanks to CBS Sports. Until Wednesday, back on normal time on Wednesday, may all of your gains be loyal.