MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Whittaker vs. Gastelum | Paul vs. Askren | Bellator 257 | Showtime Boxing | Ep 144

Episode Date: April 16, 2021

Luke is joined by guest host Aaron Bronsteter to preview a big weekend of combat sports action. In the UFC, the guys breakdown Robert Whittaker vs. Kelvin Gastelum. Plus, the light heavyweight world grand prix continues at Bellator 257 with 2 big matchups. Also, Showtime Boxing just released their summer schedule. They do a deep dive into it. Jake Paul vs. Ben Askren is finally here, they take one final look at the boxing matchup. --------------------------- '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. Well, it's Friday and you ain't got no job and you ain't got nothing to do. Hi, everyone. It is the 16th of April, 2021. My name is Luke Thomas and it is time for Morning Combat. Hi there. I'm from CBS Sports and Showtime. And the gentleman on the other side of the screen is a uh well it's a much thinner brian campbell and also not really brian campbell at all he is from canada he's from tsn he's my friend and yours he is guest hosting with me today it is the one and only aaron bronstetter hi aaron how

are you i'm good luke now i may not have the blue humor or the 90s music references in my back pocket but i do have lithuanian roots and canadian, so I will be bringing a little bit of BC to the table. Okay, just please don't kiss your father, which he thinks is a normal thing to do. If you can skip that, you're great. You'll be fine. No, in all seriousness, glad to have you. A lot to get to today.

We have UFC talk, Askren and Jake Paul talk, a little bit of boxing we'll throw in there, and some Bellator, obviously, as well well. So should be a good time. How are you keeping up with the pandemic these days? We have never had you host the show, so tell folks like, you don't have to tell me where you live, Liv, but you know what your neck of the woods is like. Well, I'm doing well. It's a bit of a dumpster fire here in terms of the COVID numbers. In Ontario, we had like 4,700 new cases yesterday. It's the worst we've actually had since the start of the pandemic. So we're moving along. We've got a stay-at-home order. And here I am staying at home and joining Morning Combat, which is great.

I love this show. I listen to it all the time. And it's an honor you'd think of me. So, you know, up here in Canada, the weather's getting a little bit nicer. Things are turning the corner in that regard. So, you know, can't complain about that. My kids are out. It's spring break for them. They're having some fun outside playing Pokemon Go with my wife. She's gotten addicted to it, which is interesting in its own right. But yeah, things are getting better. You know, the vaccines are rolling out slowly, not as fast as you guys to the south, but we're moving along. Do you think you'll travel for shows this year? I was saying to your crew before the show, I'm thinking November or December

is probably the earliest realistic guess, if I had to make one, that we're going to be able to travel safely. So hopefully this year, I wouldn't bet on it, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed because I miss being on the road dearly. I love speaking to these great athletes in person and covering and covering the events in person i miss it a lot uh so hopefully we can turn the corner soon and uh and get things get the show back on the road

yeah well bc and i are halfway towards our vaccination goal i get my next one on tuesday i'm not sure about him but pretty soon here so it's there's a light at the end of this tunnel mr aaron bronstetter um all right housekeeping notes give the video a thumbs up hit the subscribe button uh why don't you give a follow to aaron and me on social media we can put up the lower third here i'll take a look at it there it is you can see uh we have different names because we're both didn't plan our names very well uh for social media so you can see it there uh give aaron a follow on twitter or Instagram. It's a great follow.

He has a lot of good interviews. He does his own podcast. Does great good reporting, good analysis, and the whole nine yards, which is why, of course, we have him on the show today. So if you haven't done it already, give him a follow. And, of course, everything Morning Combat is there as well. If you want to try Showtime for 30 days, you can do that for free. If you like it, you can keep it.

If not, you can just go cancel and go fuck off. If you want to take the plunge and actually order it, there's your URL right there. Show.com slash Bellator MMA. If you go to that URL and you sign up now, your first six months of the entire day of the Showtime experience. So Bellator, boxing, and everything else in the Showtime library, live TV, blah, blah, blah. Would be just five bucks a month for the first six months. You could check that out. We got some merch.

We got to get Aaron Bronson. Rashad Evans had no merch, and I'm pretty sure Aaron Bronson has no merch, although there's no way you could have merch because we don't ship to Canada yet. Yeah, I tried to order. Couldn't get any. Yeah, we got to fix that. But for those of you in the vaccinated lower 48, you can go to store.show.com,

and you can get some, you can get, let's see, you can get glasses like this, you can get mugs, you can get hats, shirts, the whole nine yards. And Aaron, aside from just following you on social media, like, is there a hub, a destination where most of your work lives? Yeah, it's tsn.ca slash UFC for all of the UFC content that TSN puts out. So you can check that out. And in the spirit of being a company guy,

if you want to watch the great Showtime programming in Canada, you can subscribe to Crave TV, a fantastic service that allows you to watch all of Showtime's wonderful original programming here in Canada. So that's how you watch it there, right? Is that like a streaming service? Yeah, it's an OTT service that the wonderful folks at Bell Media put out. We put out all of the great Showtime shows. You can get it all in one place on Crave TV. That's amazing. So the same place in Canada that hosts, essentially, that will...

Oh, no, no. Does Bell own TSN? Bell owns TSN. Bell owns Crave TV. So they show UFC content and Bellator content? We don't have Bellator here yet. Bellator in Canada is on YouTube right now. I think they're looking for a new home for Bellator in Canada. But yeah, so if you want to watch, as we kick off the show. UFC Fight Night is tomorrow. UFC Whitaker versus Gastelum. I don't even know which Vegas it is anymore. UFC Vegas 30 or something like that. I think it's 25. 25.

Okay. Yeah, you're good for stuff like that. You tend to keep track of those details. Let's assume for the sake of argument that it is, in fact, UFC Fight Night 20 or UFC Vegas 25. Let's start with this main event. You know, it's really kind of interesting. For me, obviously, I've spent a ton of attention thinking about Bellator working here at Showtime. or a UFC Vegas 25. Let's start with his main event. You know, it's really kind of interesting.

For me, obviously, I've spent a ton of attention thinking about Bellator working here at Showtime. Their fights are tonight. Vadim Nemkov is putting his title on the line. I'm thinking a lot about that. Of course, you have Askren and Paul. Maybe, you know, you can say what you want about it, and we will a little bit later. Probably the biggest fight of the weekend

in terms of just mass fan appeal. And quietly, you have robert whittaker taking on kelvin gaslam is it just a showcase of they're kind of coming in at a moment where there's just so many other things happening in the combat sports space that people are overlooking two guys who just don't have a lot of angry things to say to each other aaron yeah it's funny this headline the pay-per-view two years ago unfortunately didn't happen. A medical emergency for Robert Whitaker Day. Although, there was a title on the line during that one. It was supposed to be.

Fair enough. But they're still the same fighters. They're still high, high level middleweights. And I think the winner of this fight is going to stake claim to the next championship bout. I love this fight. And the reason why is because if you look at Gastelum, he's kind of getting to take a bit of a shortcut. He said he had a 12-month plan to get back in the title contention. Instead, right place, right time, right circumstance, and now he's

right back in the title picture after that win over Ian Hynes. Now, if you look at what has happened to Gastelum since the Israel fight, he had that close fight with Darren Till where he was a little bit gun-shy and ended up losing a decision there. Very, very close fight. Then you've got the fight with Jack Cremanson where he got caught. Let's face it, it wasn't a great stylistic matchup for him. He got caught, tapped out first round, very unlike Kelvin Gastelum. But then he comes back to form against Heinisch. Now against Whitaker, I still think it's a very similar matchup to the first time they were matched up. I don't think that Kelvin Gastelum has regressed as a fighter.

This guy's still in his 20s. We've got to remember that. This is still a young man who's entering his prime. Whitaker too. Whitaker's, what, 31, 32? So these guys are still fairly young, or at least close to being in their prime in their career, right? So I think we're going to get an even better version of these two guys this weekend than what we would have seen on that pay-per-view event, which is really nice to see. I think Robert Whitaker's really adapted his technique and the way that he approaches fights. He's been a lot more tactical recently i think he he changed a lot of things going on in his personal life in order to be happy and he's

been saying a happy robert whitaker is a dangerous robert whitaker but i really want to see what gaston can do here because are we going to get the same kelvin gaston that was in title contention because if we do i i love this fight i think it's going to be phenomenal and i think it's a really interesting matchup yeah i like your point about the age of Kelvin Gastelum. I also think, and I wonder where you're coming down on this theory. Rashad has said it. I think I've said it maybe in the past. I don't know how much I still believe it, but there's probably something a little bit to it that, at least by perception's sake, Gastelum is a guy who can either fight up or down to opposition. He looked good against Heinish in winning.

He looked really good against Adesanya in losing. He made it very, very close. Obviously, he didn't get his hand raised in one he did in the other. But to what extent do you make of that theory? Do you like, not like the idea, do you accept the idea that he's a little bit inconsistent in how good he is fight over fight more than he is just playing to his competition? Well, I think that changed after the Israel fight. Because in order to get to the Israel fight, he had to do a lot of things that just playing to his competition. Well, I think that changed after the Israel fight, because in order to get to the Israel

fight, he had to do a lot of things that got him to the dance. I mean, look at the knockout over Bisping, you know, on that really short notice assignment for Bisping. Gastelum gets it done. Gastelum was really a killer at that point in time. Now, whether or not some of that spirit was taken away by Israel from having that kind of a five-round war, one of the, I think, one of the greatest fights, maybe the greatest fight in UFC history, really. That fight, it was remarkable.

But that can take a lot out of a fighter. Now, it looked like it kind of elevated Israel because he ended up winning that fight. But I think that with Gastelum, he needs to go back to those roots that he had that got him to the dance in the first place if he wants to win this fight. And I think that from a tactical standpoint

and an X's and O's point of view, this is a really close fight. And I think that from a tactical standpoint and an X's and O's point of view, this is a really close fight. You look at the odds, I don't think they're truly indicative of how live of an underdog Kelvin Gastelum is here. You're looking at a lot of recency bias here because we've seen what Whitaker has done since the fight against Israel. He's bounced back and he's looked like a different fighter and he's looked like a better fighter. But I think that we can't discount Kelvin Gastelum at this stage based on what we saw from him in the till fight and the hermanson fight i think like you almost need to throw those out the windows because this is just a completely different fight for me i i the one thing i like i've thought about that both guys carry the

advantage which is why i'm hopeful about how good it will be is that to your point this used to be a fight that was going to headline a pay-per-view these guys and the fight was canceled like just hours before it was set to go forward these guys had an entire camp already getting ready for the other guy now both are probably a little bit different since that time but not in you know hugely dramatic ways so they carry with them a little bit of that uh preparation which i really like The thing about me that gives me pause for Kelvin Gastelum is if someone asked me, do I think this fight is winnable for Kelvin Gastelum? The answer is 1000% yes. It is absolutely winnable. But he's had a series of fights where he has had against your Tills and against your Adesanya's. He plays it close. He did drop Chris Weidman in

the first round when they fought, but then he got down the stretch. He just couldn't maintain the level of success needed to win. And so he can beat the guys. Ian Hinesh is a good fighter, but he can beat top 10, top 15, or I should say 6-15

in that area. Kelvin Gaslam is very competitive. 5-1, he pushes those guys. I don't know that I've seen clear evidence he can overcome that area, Kelvin Gaslam is very competitive. 5-1, he pushes those guys. I don't know that I've seen clear evidence he can overcome that hurdle, but if you do it against Robert Whitaker, that narrative dies immediately. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that that's why he's lucky to be able to get this fight with Pablo Costa pulling out. I think this is a real story of redemption on the line right now for Kelvin Gaslam

because he answers a lot of questions if he gets this win. He suddenly becomes, I think, the number one contender, because I think that, you know, nobody's going to say no to a rematch between Israel and Kelvin Gaslam based on what we saw the first time around. But I think I agree with you. I think that he needs to show that he can fight up to his competition. He needs to show that he can beat the upper echelon guys in the division, because who are the wins over that got him there? I mean, I think the Bisping win is the one that's the most apparent, but he was running through guys back then when he moved to middleweight, and he looked like a killer. And I thought he was the best guy in the division at the time. When he was going to face Israel, I said, I think Kelvin Gastelum

is the guy to beat right now. And he showed that that wasn't necessarily the case. But I do think he still has it in him to bring the fight to Robert Whittaker. And I don't think we're going to see a whole lot of grappling in this fight. I think we're going to see five solid rounds of back and forth. Now, can Kelvin Gastelum, if this fight's even going into the fifth round, do what he was unable to do against Israel the last time they fought? I mean, the only time they fought really, but be able to really put his foot on the gas and show that kind of willpower and determination to get that fifth round and get over the hump.

Because I think that's what's been missing in his career is when his back's against the wall, is he able to get to that next level? Yeah, that's a great point. I think Whitaker's probably going to put him there on some level throughout the course of it. Although, you know, Gastelum's going to get his licks in just the same. One interesting point someone brought up to me yesterday, I hadn't even thought about it, which is, let's imagine a world where Gastelum wins. It's legit, but let's say not authoritative. Like, it was very tight, which you

could imagine, you know, given the skill set of Robert Whitaker. But let's say Gastelum gets his hand raised under that circumstance. UFC would have an interesting choice there, because if Whitaker wins, I don't know how you don't give him the title shot at that point, right? But if Gastelum wins, you'll have Gastelum and Vittori as your more or less sort of guys who have now pushed themselves to the front of the pack a little bit. They're teammates. Do you think UFC might make them into a playoff, and the winner of that gets Israel? I mean I don't think so I think that you I think you have to give it to Gaslam honestly I think that if Gaslam gets the win he gets the next shot you know the thing about it is Israel's

beaten both those guys and if you were to ask me who has the best chance of beating Israel I think it's Marvin Vittori I think Marvin Vittori has stepped his game up I thought that their first fight was really really close but I do think that that win over Kevin Holland is not much different than what we saw Brunson do to Kevin Holland. So I think that Vittori really needed to put an exclamation point on the Kevin Holland fight because Kevin Holland at the time, I don't think he was ranked. And if he was, he was at the very bottom of the top 15 of the middleweight division.

Whereas if you get Gaslam beating the number one contender, I think you have to give him the shot, regardless of how he wins this fight. Now, I don't think that Israel wants to wait for a playoff. I mean, Israel has, you know, he likes to stay busy. He likes to stay active. I think he wants to get that stink off of his name from that Jan Blachowicz fight and remind everybody why he's one of the best fighters in the world. So I don't think that we're going to have time for a playoff between Vittori and Gastelum. Maybe you have Javier Cordero do an impromptu sparring session. You stream it live.

You get the fans at home to judge it, and they determine who gets the next title shot. But, you know, that's Fantasyland type. That's BC type stuff. That's the inner BC in me coming out to make such a suggestion. But I think that we're going to see the winner of this fight this week and get the next title shot. Should be interesting. Can't wait to see it. In your co-main featherweight contest, I believe Jeremy Stevens taking on Jakar Close. Two guys who are absolute dogs, two guys who are aggressive, two guys who are, you know, if you had to describe people who have like

mean fighting styles, Jeremy Stevens has a mean style to grow close to I would actually argue to an extent um but neither really all that close to anything super meaningful in that division so I like the fight I think it'll be fun I think it's a good matchup the the matchmakers found an interesting pairing between the two but doesn't carry a whole lot of significance other than for the individual's careers right yeah it's certainly interesting because jeremy stevens moving back to 155 oh this is a lightweight it's not it's not featherweight belt no this is a lightweight belt yeah jeremy's moving back up to 155 i think he's going to stay at 155 for the remainder of his career he's talked about

in interviews about how the cut to 145 was difficult on him but you know the funny thing hold on you can see how i'm quite behind in jeremy stevens interviews yeah you need you need to brush up on your jeremy stevens uh knowledge you know i was supposed to interview him this week it kind of fell through but i was watching a lot of his previous interviews and uh and he was talking a little bit about how he wanted to stay at 155 now and you know that's where he started his ufc career there was no featherweight division when he started his career what's remarkable is he's only like two or three months older than francis and you look at the uh how long he's been in the ufc for it's kind of strange he's only like two or three months older than Francis Ngannou. And you look at how long he's been in the UFC for, it's kind of strange. He's only 34 years old.

I mean, I think he's got, what, the second most UFC fights in history after this weekend behind Jim Miller. Jim Miller. Yeah, so I think this is an interesting one for him because you look at his last five fights. He's winless in his last five fights, but he was facing the murderer's row of the murderer's row division of featherweight. He's got Zabit. He's got, you know, Jose Aldo. He's got the two fights against Jair Rodriguez, Calvin Cater. I mean, these are the absolute killers of killers, and this is the perfect fight for him right now, because Dracar Close is a really good fighter at 155. He's not ranked, though, and I think that to be ranked at 155 is very, very meaningful. That's, I think, the division

that has the most depth in the sport right now. But right now, this is kind of a litmus test fight for Jeremy Stephens. He's a small favorite against Close. I think that makes a lot of sense. But you look at it on paper, and it's like, well, this guy hasn't won in, what, two, three years. So I think that he needs to get that win. He needs to show that he's still there.

This, like you said, is going to be something of a dogfight. These are two guys that don't back down. And I think it's going to come down to who does back down first in this one. Kind of wild that Close is not, I mean, this is how insane lightweight is. And we can have a debate what's better, bantamweight, lightweight, fine. Plenty of fun to be had there. But just think about this for a second. This dude, Dracar Close, has wins over Mark Giacchese, Lando Venata, and Bobby Green, and he's unranked. That is such a hard division in which to excel.

And even though he lost the Benil Dariush fight, he had Dariush on skates for a little bit of that back and forth that happened there as well. So it just tells you how hard it is to win at 155 pounds. Yeah, it's such a hard division to crack into. I almost feel like if you're at 155 pounds, your best bet is to move up to 170 and try to make your name there because there's just so much depth in that division and you need to get a marquee opponent in order to get ranked. You're not going to be able to get ranked like Shemayev, how he got ranked at 170 pounds just based on performance. I feel like at 155 pounds, in order to get ranked. You're not going to be able to get ranked, like Shemaev, how he got ranked at 170 pounds

just based on performance. I feel like at 155 pounds, you need to beat the best of the best guys. I think that might be the biggest hindrance to Islam Makhachev moving up, is that you're going to have a lot of trouble finding people that want to fight this guy, but, you know, that are ranked above him.

And that happens from time to time, even looking at Usman next week. I mean, it took Usman forever to crack that top 10 because he couldn't find top 10 guys to face him. I think that can be the same kind of issue at 155 because people have to be kind of protective of their ranking because it's so hard to get into that top 15 that you don't want to slip out of it.

It's crazy. I can't wait to see that one as well. Anything else from that card tickle your fancy? Well, you know, coming from Canada, I do need to put some shine on Lupita Godinez. She's the strawweight champion of LFA, based in Vancouver. Her family moved from Mexico to the west coast of Canada about 11 years ago, and she's making her debut

against Jessica Pene, who's been out of action for four years after that suspension. But I think that Godinez can make a real statement here and put herself on the map at strawweight. I know that, you know, Pene, we're going to have to see what she still has left. But I need to give some props to Lupi because, you know, as a Canadian and someone who's seen her fight live back when she was, you know, fighting on the regional scene at BTC, I think that she's a real player in this division. And I think that she's

going to put herself on the map here, short notice assignment against Jessica Pene. Is there good Mexicanican food in canada there's scarborough the city that i live in here in canada is the most diverse food city in the world so we've got everything here luke we have everything we've got some great el salvadoran food uh nearby great mexican food we got it we got it all here in scarborough all right i'm gonna have to check that out next time i'm in the great white north my daughter had a pupusa for breakfast this morning who says they are the best. They're amazing.

If you've never had them, it's kind of like, what would you call it? It's not going to rape them, but not really. It's almost like a cheese and meat pancake, something like that. Yeah, it's El Salvadoran, actually. So I get pupusas all the time from El Pulgarcito here in Scarborough. It's basically like a fried kind of thick white bread with beans and cheese baked into it. It's great. It's hard to beat a good baboosa.

Have you had good... I know you've traveled, obviously, to California with work. Have you ever done the L.A. taco thing? I have. It's awesome. It's another universe of good. Yeah, sorry, not the Honda Center. What's the one in LA?

The main arena there I know I'm playing. Staples Center. Yeah, when I stayed near Staples, there were some great Mexican restaurants, like hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurants near there. Yeah, that's a great experience. If you get a chance to try a lot of the authentic Mexican food in California, it's just top-notch. All right, so that takes us from UFC now to Bellator,

which is tonight on Showtime. Bellator 257. Last week, the light heavyweight World Grand Prix kicked off on the left side of the bracket, if you're looking at it, when Ryan Bader took on and ultimately defeated Lyoto Machida. That same side of the bracket will continue as Corey Anderson takes on Dovletchjan Yakshamurdov.

We'll talk about that in just a second. But the right side of the bracket, which if you ask me, that's the glamour division. That's the group of death. Vadim Nemkov, your champion, taking on Phil Davis. And then on May 7th, the winner of tonight's fight will take on the winner of Rumble versus Romero. It's just no easy fight there. It doesn't matter what the permutation is. But we start with the one that is happening for the light heavyweight title. It is a rematch from three years ago and current champion vadim nemkov takes on phil davis uh all right mr bronster i'll go to you first on this one bc and i have talked a lot about this about nemkov in general about phil davis we did the whole special

what is your level of intrigue in this rematch? What intrigues me the most about this tournament is I feel like this is a tournament where you can see the belt come off at any time. You know, the belt's on the line as the tournament wears on, and that's what intrigues me the most about this tournament. Like, I would not be surprised if we've got a new champion tonight, and we haven't seen that yet at the tournament level in Bellator. I love

the fact that all of these are five-round fights, that the title's on the line when the champion competes. I think it adds a little bit of glamour to this tournament. And I think this is an awesome fight. You know, I think that Phil Davis can beat anybody on any given night. He's so good. He was a guy that I thought was going to one day challenge Jon Jones in the UFC. That fight never ended up happening.

I know your colleague Rashad fought Phil Davis. One of my favorite trash talk moments was when they were, I think they were doing a press conference, and Rashad Evans was saying to Phil Davis that One of my favorite trash talk moments was when they were, I think they were doing a press conference and Rashad Evans was saying to Phil Davis that he had junk technique. He goes,

your technique's junk. You've got junk technique. I don't know why, but I think that got in Phil Davis' head. Like, when you take a wrestler and you have another wrestler and you critique

that man's technique, that can cut deep. And I feel like that's how Rashad got the mental edge over Phil Davis, telling him he had junk technique. But I

think that in this particular fight, Phil Davis is a guy that does not lose easily. He's a very, very difficult out. He does not get stopped inside the distance. I don't know if he's ever been stopped inside the distance, and if it has happened, it's a rarity. Yeah, Phil Davis is just... He's a guy who's got one of the most athletic

builds that we've ever seen in the sport. He's got fantastic wrestling pedigree. And I think that when you mix those things together and you mix his versatility, his durability, while his fights don't always make for the most exciting affairs, he's a guy that can win on any given night. And it would not surprise me if we have a new champion tonight. I sat next to Linton Vassell's family when he fought. I forget who he was fighting.

It was at one of the Dynamite shows, so I forget who he was fighting. Maybe it was Phil. At a bare minimum, Phil was on the card. And I remember I sat next to his family, Lytton Vassil, he has two sisters, and Phil Davis weighed in, and their jaws were on the floor. I was like, ladies, some professionalism here.

Get it together. But you're right, he's looked like a, you know, like a bodybuilder from day one. Here's the thing about this fight that I find very, well, actually, let me, before I tell you what I think, on Vadim Nemkov, where are you on, like, how good he is? It's weird. He's one of those champions where I feel like we need to see more, almost. But I was always on the Vadim Nemkov train. Early on in his Bellator career, I said, this guy is a tough, tough fighter and a really dynamic fighter. I didn't know if he was going to become champion, but when he was fighting these top guys and he was an underdog, I kept saying to people, like, you got to look at Vadim Nemkov. Like, you might not have heard of this guy, but this is a guy you need to watch out for. Now, the talk has always been that Bellator has the

better light heavyweight division than the UFC. I don't know about that. I think that we still have yet to see, and I think that Jan Blachowicz was kind of the reason why people made those comments. And we now see how good Jan Blachowicz has become. But I do believe that Vadim Nemkov is going to be a really, really difficult out for anybody in this tournament. The reason why I say that we could have a new champion in this tournament is because at the higher weight classes, the belt just switches, unless you have a John Jones in there, the belt tends to switch suitors, or switch owners rather, more often, because there's a higher finishing rate, anything can happen at heavyweight and at light heavyweight, and of course, you know, we haven't seen a title switch hands in these tournaments,

but the heavyweight title, there was a vacant championship, so there was no champion going into that particular tournament, if I recall, and then of course, you've got Pitbull, who's lording over the 145-pound division, and now he's in the final. And when you have the final, I don't necessarily consider that to be about losing, being lost during a tournament, because it's the finale. I think that that's where you have the two best guys, and now you've got a title fight. But I'm talking about in the early rounds, the preliminary rounds of the tournament,

I think that there's a bigger likelihood in a tournament in the higher weight classes that you're going to see a title switch hands. And that's why with Nemkov, while I think he's very, very good, I think there's a lot of very, very good fighters in this tournament that can win on any given night. You know, it's funny, you mentioned something, and I brought this up with Rashad on Wednesday's show, which was, you know, Phil Davis has had some losses along the way. A lot of them have been very tight, barely losing to Nemkov, barely losing to Bader when they fought in New York City. And the point I made to Rashad was, you don't really see a lot of examples of highlight reels

for some opponent with Phil Davis in it somewhere getting bodied. You just don't see it. People don't, he loses fights, that's true, but no one lands a huge shot on him or nemkov had one decent body lock takedown on him but you don't see him getting thrown around or you know having his back taken in some kind of dramatic way he's a guy that is just very hard to do things too but i would actually argue for that reason aaron i'm a little bit i'm very curious about what happens tonight but i guess my point is this. The same reason, because of his carefulness and his thoughtfulness, because he is a smart fighter,

and he is an athletic fighter, and he manages risk really well, but maybe too well, Aaron. I guess my point is, the reason why you don't see him on highlight reels is also why he might be coming up a little bit short in these very, very narrow fights. He didn't lose to Nemkov badly the first time. It was quite minimal. Same with Bader. It was quite minimal. He lacks a little bit, at least historically, in these big fights of stepping on the gas. He likes to get by by winning the rounds. I don't know if Nemkov's the guy to do that to. I really feel like you got to put it on him a little bit if you want to get by. Yeah, but Davis is so dangerous the whole time, and he's just such a good tactician.

You know, Davis has one great highlight in his entire career, that Anaconda win over Gustafsson, but outside of that, I can't think of a ton of real standout moments in Phil Davis' career. This is one of those ones where you're about to go to the park and play chess with somebody. That's the mentality you need to bring to a Phil Davis fight. You're in this for the long haul,

and you can't make any little mistakes. You need to be on your game. That's what happens when you face Phil Davis fight. You're in this for the long haul, and you can't make any little mistakes. You need to be on your game. That's what happens when you face Phil Davis, and I think that that's probably the approach that Nemkov has. I don't think Nemkov's going to come out there looking to take his head off, because if you give a little opening to Phil Davis, we've seen how good this guy can be at exploiting those little openings. This isn't a guy that you can get careless against, and that's why Phil Davis's fights are so tactical, and there may not be that many highlights involved, but it's because of how dangerous he is, and because of how talented he is. And that's why I think this fight goes all five rounds, and I think it's going to be a very close fight. And again, that's why I think that this title can

change hands tonight. Unless you see Nemkov do to Phil Davis what we haven't been able to see other people do to Davis, and I'm not convinced that that can happen based on Davis' track record, I think that we're going to see a very close fight tonight. Should be very interesting. Now, the other side of the bracket, this is a really weird one that a lot of folks don't really know what to do with, including me to an extent. Corey Anderson made a Bellator debut against Melvin Manhoff. He looked great, but let's be honest, Melvin Manhoff is in his early to mid-40s. If Corey looked anything other than dominant, I would have been worried. So whatever, that's that.

But I do think at 30 years, people forget Corey Anderson's only 30 years old. Feels like he's been around forever. And Brian and I had a discussion on the show once, Aaron. We're talking about the early, early version of Marvin Vittori. But he made his UFC debut when he was 23. Well, by the time he's 27, 28,

yeah, he looks a lot better. Corey Anderson, okay this the rematch with uh Blachowicz didn't go well but in general I really feel like the true story is this guy has come a long way he has really worked out a lot of the kinks in his game the thing about Yakshamurdov is no doubt he's going to be undersized that's really not up for debate he's just not got a great 205 pound frame because even if he beats Corey Anderson tonight uh Aaron he has to fight Ryan Bader right after that so good luck with that but I will say if you look at the tape on Yakshamuradov he he's good he's very good

he's strong for the weight class he can do it all looks a little bit pot-bellied and has no expectations about him people can barely pronounce his name he is, is he the dark horse or is Corey Anderson the dark horse? Which one is it? Well, while Polish people will say Jagzimierz, Dolvijan Jagzimierz says Jagzimierz, this guy can smash. He's from Turkmenistan. We've seen what he can do in ACA. And this guy is able to just put it on people. I think he's got to be the dark horse because people haven't heard of him. And one thing we have to remember, if you look at the opening line for this fight, Yagshimurdov was the favorite. Now it's moved to Corey Anderson being around a minus 170 favorite,

so the odds on this fight now have gone towards Corey Anderson, but I think that's entirely based on name value. People have not heard of Dolvijan Yagshimurdov unless you really follow the sport closely, and you've seen what he's been able to do in ACA. And this is a guy that is able to put it on people. We've seen Corey Anderson get finished before by the likes of Jan Blachowicz the current champion but you know I think that Yagshamurdov is a guy that because we don't know that much about him you have to consider him the dark horse because unless you know what his skill set is you know what he's good at you've been able to watch tape of this guy and you break it down and not

you know let's be honest fans of the sport don't go doing deep dives on fighters like a lot of people in the media have to do or people that provide breakdowns of these fights or try to handicap these fights you know those are the people that really dive deep if you're somebody who's just tuning in tonight and wants to watch a great tournament and wants to see corey anderson and see what he can do in bellator this is going to be an interesting test for him but all the pressures on corey here because if young shimmer dog wins this fight people are gonna be like who's this guy this random guy who just beat Corey Anderson I've never heard of this guy before so that puts a lot of extra pressure on Corey

Anderson going into this one because he was a guy that was very close to getting a UFC championship fight against John Jones when Jones was the champion he fell short against Jan Boavich asked for his release got his release now he can easily come out of the tournament as the champion that's fell short against Jan Boavic, asked for his release, got his release. Now he can easily come out of the tournament as the champion. That's how good Corey Anderson is. But if he ends up losing to Yagshamirov, what now? Where does he go from here? Is he going to have to sit on the shelf and wait for this tournament to end? Is he going to just take fights to keep him busy? So much pressure tonight on Corey Anderson, and that can be a real hindrance to him. There's that about it. And then on top of that, he's not going to get the credit he deserves if he wins.

If he gets even a stoppage, I mean, if he looks like amazing, they'll say that. But if he gets like a nice win over a very talented opponent, they're just going to be like, oh, well, you'd be the guy that no one ever heard of. He can't really win.

But the consolation at that point would be, A, you advance in the tournament, and B, you know, careful what you wish for because Ryan Bader's coming down the hill a million miles an hour ready to face him as well. So it should be a lot of fun there. Anything else from the card that stands out to you? I have to say the prelims actually have Pedro Carvalho who lost to Pitbull in the last round or two rounds ago in the tournament taking on JJ Wilson, this Kiwi kid.

They call him the Maori boy out of New Zealand who's actually pretty good. He's undefeated 7-0. I'm looking towards that. Anything else in this card got your attention? Well, I want to give some credit to Bellator here because, let's be honest, when you look down the line of a Bellator card from top to bottom, a lot of the prelim fights, you've never heard of these people. You know, unless you are really, really, you know, following this more closely. I think if I look at every single one of these fights, there is somebody that I've heard of. Saul Rogers, of course, from Tough. Mads Bernal, an excellent young prospect that got signed to Bellator.

Lance Gibson Jr., a nice Canadian boy. The stepson of Julia Budd, who fights later on in the card. So I'm eager to see Lance Gibson Jr. Julia Budd's Canadian. I always forget that. Yeah. Canadian royalty, mixed martial arts royalty. Lance Gibson Sr. will be in the corner of both of them.

Pedro Carvalho. We saw him compete in the featherweight tournament. And J.J. Wilson, a real up-and-comer as well. You've got Viktor Nemkov, a former UFC veteran, the brother of Vadim Nemkov, earlier in the card, against Albrechtson. Another, I believe, Albrechtson, he fought in Dream. His name's very familiar to me.

And, of course, Raymond Daniels. Raymond Daniels is on this card. I don't know, wasn't Colby Northcutt supposed to be on this card? No, Colby Northcutt is in one championship, and Raymond Daniels is married to Colby Northcutt. That's right, that's it. And they train with T.J. Dillashaw and Juan Archuleta and all those folks. Yeah, and I mean, when you've got Raymond Daniels on,

I don't know much about his opponent, but he's must-see TV. Demarcus Jackson, a nice up-and-coming prospect as well. Steve Mowry, who you mentioned. So this card has a lot of talent on it from top to bottom, and you don't often see that with Bellator cards, where you've heard of so many people in these fights, and you need to tune in to the prelims.

But that's Saul Rogers' fight versus Mads Brunel. What a great way to open up this card. I mean, these are two incredible fighters. So I'm really eager to see a lot of the prelims but that's Saul Rogers fight versus Mads Brunel what a great way to open up this card I mean these are two incredible fighters so uh I'm really eager to see a lot of the prelims which usually going into a Bellator card I hate to say I don't often say I need to watch the prelims but tonight I feel like you need to watch this from top to bottom yeah I wonder if because for folks who mean I realize to Aaron's point I've said this before like I was at when like let's say for example it was in uh St. Louis when Kimbo fought Ken Shamrock if memory serves I believe yeah that's right because he fought Dada in Houston so they fought in St. Louis and for the prelim card basically what happened was all the fighters

wear Bellator gloves and Bellator gear and they're announced by the Bellator announcers fighting in the Bellator cage um and you know the win is logged as fighting at Bellator whatever the number was at that time but they had done a deal with like shamrock fc which is a local promotion in um in that area and so shamrock fc basically filled the entire undercard and it was really only bellator fighters like like you know exclusive i should say bellator fighters on the main there might have been one or two bellator guys in the prelims, but not really. This seems like a pivot to a new strategy.

I'm guessing, even though I work at Showtime, no one tells me shit, I'm guessing because they're on Showtime, but I can't say for sure. I don't actually know that, you know? Yeah, and it's not too far removed from Bellator getting local fighters on the card for just the prelims and not sending them to a contract,

and they got a share of the tickets they were able to sell like we're not too far removed from those days in bellator so it is nice to see a lot of really high level fighters on the on the prelims and uh you know a lot of fighters that people will have heard of if even if you're you know not the most uh into mixed martial arts you don't follow it so closely there's going to be at least one person you look at that prelim card that you've heard of uh also it should be be noted, I don't know what to make of this fight because Paul Daly was supposed to fight during the pandemic, Semtex, the British guy, and he missed the weight and it was a whole mess and they had to cancel it last minute. And then he put out a statement at the time, and this was in October, and he said, listen,

my next fight's going to be 175-pound catchweight and that's going to be my last. Well, here we are. He's fighting Sabaho Masi, the Dustin Poirier protege out of American Top Team, who's gotten really good. And it's a great fight. I'm actually interested in seeing it. And, Aaron, it is at 175 pounds. But Daly was asked this week if this is his last one.

He said, yes, it could be, but he didn't quite commit to it. Are you viewing this as the retirement bout of Paul Daly? Not really. I don't know if I buy into retirement bouts in general. Usually, it seems like a lot of things can get people out of retirement, whether it's a bare knuckle or whether it's just another, you know, you get a win and you're like, oh, okay, I'm still good at this. I want to keep doing this.

But like you mentioned, Sabah Humasi is a really good fighter. We saw a lot of what he could do when he was in the UFC against Abdul Razak Al-Hassan, just two wars. And he's been training with Jorge Masvidal, who's, of course, in camp to face Usman next week, right? So he's going to be doing his training reps with one of the best welterweights in the world week in and week out. And this is going to be such a fun fight because Sabah Hamasi, you're going into the fire with Sabah Hamasi. I don't care who you are. And those are the kind of fights that bring the best out of Paul Daly. Speaking of Showtime, it was recently the 10-year anniversary

of what I think is the best single-round fight in MMA history against Nick Diaz that they had on Strikeforce 10 years ago. What an amazing fight. If you haven't watched that before you watch Bellator tonight, if you want to get acclimated with Paul Daly, if you're not already, of course, watch that fight, or even if you don't, because it's just such a joy to watch. It's five minutes of your day. But I can't wait for this one.

I think that this is a fight where, again, both these guys are just going to get into the fire, and we're going to see the best out of both these guys in this situation. Yeah, there it is. This is the, you see the highlight here. That's the famous knockout on Brennan Ward, the double switch knee there. Pretty amazing. So, yeah, I hope it's not. I mean, listen, I hope it's not if he wants

to continue, but only if he can make weight because, you know, not making weight in your mid to late 30s, not a great look. All right. You know what, Luke? We need more of these catch weights fights for a lot of these older fighters. Why not? Like, if they're not fighting for anything, if they say to the promotion, I'm not going to be entitled to contention, but I want to keep fighting for you guys. I just hate cutting weight. I'm getting older. It's harder to get the pounds off. Give me an extra 5, 10 pounds. Let's do some catchweight fights. I don't know why promotions are so hesitant to book catchweight fights.

I know Dana White says that catchweight fights don't mean anything, but if these guys aren't going to contend for a title anymore and they're realistic about it, the fight doesn't need to mean anything. It doesn't need to mean upward trajectory. A good fight is a good fight. More catch weights. Less weight cutting for no reason. Let's keep that train rolling.

I like that because everyone, like, if you really think about the challenge of weight cutting, Aaron, it's actually a lot more, it's a really difficult problem, which is as long as you can sweat and excrete any kind of fluid, you basically are trying to regulate around that and there's that's just incredibly hard to do essentially it can be done obviously but it's very very hard to do so one of the solutions is don't change the weight classes leave them as they are but grant a little bit of flexibility between them especially for the older fighters who to your point it's like every time a guy like i saw i'm I'm not bagging on the commentary team because everybody who, you know,

you're hired by the promotion, generally speaking, to do it. I don't know if it works that way with Showtime, but it certainly does for UFC. And I've heard like, oh, somebody lost. And it's like, you know, well, their stock went up, even in a loss. And it's like, eh, sometimes that's true, but you're overstating it.

I'm just generally sort of saying there often tends to be these narratives around guys that you're pointing out, which is like, what does it all mean? How far away is this old vet from a title shot? And you're like, dude, let's be realistic about it. He's never going to have another title shot. That's not what this is about,

but he can still lay hands on people and it's entertaining and he can make money. Let's just call that for what it is. That's what you're arguing, right? That's your worldview. Just be honest about the old guys and the audience will be none the wiser. Yeah, let them have a better lifestyle, really. Let them have a healthier lifestyle. There's no reason for a guy who's 37 or 38 years old to do a drastic wake-up. Why? Why? And another thing is, you know, the UFC during the pandemic era, they had, I think it was Brian Kelleher taking on Cody Sainman at 145 pounds.

If you're giving people short notice fights, let them fight upper weight class against somebody in their weight class. It might not mean anything in the grand scheme of things in terms of their ranking, but you're still beating somebody in your weight class at a higher weight. That's still a you're not at a size disadvantage there. You're still facing somebody that's in your division. It just happens to be upper weight class without the drastic weight cut needed. So book more short notice fights for people upper weight class if they're unranked fighters anyways, and they're okay with it. Listen, these guys want to get paid at the end of the day. And if they're inactive, they're not going to get paid. So if you're going to give them a short notice assignment, let them fight upper weight class so they don't need to think about the drastic weight cut that

they're going to need to do in order to get down to the weight class that they normally compete in. All right, fair enough. We'll move on here. we'll come i want to talk about this askering fight in just a second very quickly if we can let's talk uh at least show the audience at a bare minimum we have showtime announced yesterday on the boxing side their schedule for the next five months so they've got may fights june july august and then one on september the september 11th fight with stephen fulton Jr. versus the winner of May 15th, Neri versus Figueroa. Listen, this is a conversation better had for when BC is here. And when he is here, we're going to dig into some of the details. Looking at this card, the standouts to me, the Rigondeaux versus Casemiro fight.

I will probably also, I thought Donair had retired, so it's good to see him. And I'm also going to point to the Benavidez versus Uzcategui fight. Those are the ones for me that are good. I would have liked, also Jermel Charlo's fight against Castaño, I don't mind so much. Jermel, I kind of wish had a different opponent, if I could just

be candid with you, but the rest of them, especially Neri versus Figueroa, which will kick things off, is pretty great. Any of these names resonate with you, Mr rest of them especially neri versus figueroa which will kick things off is pretty great any of these names resonate with you mr mma from canada well before i start talking about boxing and before people start sending in a note that i'm a boxing casual they would be 100 correct in assuming that i'm a boxing casual so let's just uh let's just be forthright with that rather than having to get a hate mail uh like you said bc is going to be a lot better to uh to talk about this. And my knowledge of boxing comes mostly from listening to this show.

So, but what stands out to me, what stands out to me is, you know, I think Tank Davis is a guy who has a lot of interesting fights ahead of him. I was surprised to see this particular matchup, because I think there was a lot of different fighters in his weight class or in and around his weight class that could be a really big fight for him. But it's always nice to see Tank Davis compete. I mean, this is a guy who I think has so much upside in the sport. The Charlo brothers, you know, always exciting fights. So they're going to be fun to watch, of course.

And, yeah, I mean, Rigondo is always bringing the fights to people. If I recall, he fought Lomachenko at some point. Again, this is my boxing casual. Yes, Lomachenko dummied him. But Rigondel is very, very good. Yeah, but the reason they put him up against Rigondel is because he's legit, right? Rigondel is always going to bring the fight to people. So, yeah, very interesting fights.

I know David Benavidez is on the come-up. So, you know, that's a title eliminator. So there's a lot to like from this boxing schedule and a lot for me to learn, which I like. Yeah, that's how I feel most of the time, too. That Rigondel-Casemiro fight might be the best one of all of them and you're right he did fight elomachenko because both of them were uh olympic gold medalists so i think one was like two time what maybe one was more than that i can't remember anymore but they both have gold medals i think rig and dow's maybe won like three of them something insane um and so they faced them off but rig and dow still got dummied. Still, this fight, Casemiro was on that Charlo doubleheader pay-per-view.

He had a spectacular win on that card. So they're going to set up that fight with Rigondel. That should be a lot of fun. We'll go over that card or this announcement in detail when BC shows up. But I'm always curious to see what are the names that the MMA faithful recognize on the boxing side. Benavidez should be a bigger one, but he lost his title on the scale. Benavidez had one of the first fights, Aaron,

in the pandemic on the boxing side of things when people were first starting to go to hotels again and everything was restricted. And he couldn't go to the sauna. Not that it's an excuse because you're a pro, you got to figure it out. But he had another fight in the fight sphere it didn't no issue he made weight blah blah blah but he lost his title on the scales the first time and he's in that division where caleb plant is there billy joe saunders is there

um uh potentially to charlos if they want to move up there's a way there but um um you know uh there's so many canelo's a big name like there's tons of big names and he was on a beeline right for him and then got totally derailed even though he won the fight by losing on the scale so he won his last contest he looked good the Uzcategui one is the one that puts him a lot closer I think if he wins that one it's not insane to think that after plant if if Canelo gets by Beligio Saunders that a Canelo versus Benavidez fight, you know, Mexican-American versus Mexican is going to be on the docket, which

would be pretty great. And Tank Davis, another guy who lost his belt on the scale. See, I know a little bit. I know a little bit. Yeah, that's right. And fought, I always tell folks, fought on the Mayweather-McGregor card. That's right. That's where he lost the belt on the scale. Yeah. And he had the weirdest, like, Smurf-like outfit to walk out to.

It was bizarre to watch. All right. So we'll talk more about that when BC returns. Let's get to what is arguably the biggest fight of the weekend, if you want to even call it that. But it is going to happen, and they are going to trade. Jake Paul, the YouTuber-turned-public idiot, is going to take on Ben Askren,

the former UFC, what weight class was he? Welterweight. You know, previous Dan Hodge Trophy winner, previous NCAA champion and Olympian. But he retired, and he had a hip replaced, and here he is boxing. Let's back up a step, Aaron. Let's sort of set the table with you for just a second.

What is your attitude about this YouTube boxing kind of crossover thing that's being done here? I kind of like it. The reason why is because I think Triller is pretty forthright about what they're doing here. They're putting on fights that appeal to a lot of different demographics. So you've got Jake Paul and Asker, and I think that appeals to the YouTube crowd and the MMA crowd. And then you've got Rougarou versus Red Cash, and that's a legit boxing match that real boxing fans are going to want to tune into. And then you've got Rougarou versus Red Cash, and that's a legit boxing match that real boxing fans are going to want to tune into. And then you've got Cunningham versus Mir, again, drawing from both the boxing and the MMA crowd. They're doing something that's trying to appeal to a lot of different audiences, using boxing as the avenue in which to do so. And I

think that that's kind of creative. You know, I don't want to take anything away from them, because I don't think that this is an organization or a boxing governing body or anything that's trying to do something that's really, really serious here. But these guys are serious players now. You see that they win the bid for Teofimo Lopez. These guys are doing really big things in the space. And I think that while there's a circus element to it, it's fun. And I think people can respect that and respect that that's what this is all about.

It's about fun. It's about creating good competition and a level kind of playing field of competition. Because if you look at the fight between Paul and Askren, you're taking a guy who's boxed against Nate Robinson, who's apparently, by all indications, a guy who knows how to box. Not necessarily, of course, at the professional level. A guy who knows how to box against a guy who was an Olympian. A guy who has a real athletic pedigree. And I think that when you look at that particular matchup, it builds a lot of intrigue. And I think this is hands down the fight of the weekend in terms of what the public's going to be paying attention to en masse. So I

like what Triller is doing because I think it's fun. And I think that we should be open to this kind of thing because it is what it is and they're not trying to make it something that it's not all right so you have a very that's a very canadian answer aaron that's a very nice thoughtful for sure but very nice you know a positive uh not even gonna say spin because i think you're giving your real opinion so i'll say positive look uh on all these kinds of things as you can imagine i'm a little bit more jaundiced than than you be. I don't mind it, Aaron, in the sense that, like, look, if they're obeying the rules, it's being regulated by a commission, there's somebody overseeing it. I don't know how good the Georgia Commission is, but I'd rather there be one than not. The public wants to see it.

You know, I don't know that it's hurting anything at all. A lot of folks are like, oh, this is terrible for boxing. Boxing fans will watch this on some level, to your point, because Teofimo Lopez is going to be on it. Steve Cunningham's fighting Frank Mir. That's kind of weird, but you're right. Rodriguez Progre, who is a current, relevant, high-level boxer, taking on Ivan Redkatch, who fought previously Danny Garcia in the whole nine yards.

So, yes, there is some of that but it's not like at the top there if you're a Jake Paul versus Ben Asgren watcher I have serious doubts that you're that that is going to translate into boxing either being made less or more popular I don't think it has anything to do with either of it's almost its own little lane it really reminds me of early aughts like 2003-ish four-ish when you had k1 putting on hoist gracie versus aki bono that was even more exaggerated this is a little bit toned down obviously and professionalized and made more modern but it just reminds me of that which is to say uh it did huge numbers at the time. I mean, I think that fight with Aki Bono and Hoist Gracie did like 50 million people on TV. Something insane, okay? So people loved it.

It's just a little bit short-lived. And maybe this will be short-lived. Maybe it won't. I guess my argument is I don't want to hear critics say that it's bad for boxing. But I also don't want to hear supporters say, oh, this brings a new audience. I am very skeptical of the idea that the reason you watch Jake Paul box a guy who's not a boxer, by the way, Jake Paul is also not a boxer, that you can watch that and it would get you more interested in red catch versus pro gray. I don't, it doesn't work that way for me. Yeah, I'm with you on both fronts. I think that, again, going back to what I said before, this kind of is what it is.

I don't think that it's something that detracts from the sport of boxing or makes light of the sport of boxing or, you know, diminishes the sport of boxing. And I also don't think it's going to bring in a new audience. I mean, I don't think that people that are going to come in and watch this are going to walk away saying, I got to watch every boxing match for the rest of the year or anything along those lines. That said, I mean, if you are Rougarou and you put on a good performance, at least you're going to have a little bit more name value

with people that don't know about the sport. And maybe you'll be able to get people to watch your next fight. Like, I understand why these guys are going on these cards. Of course, the money's good. And I think that it brings a big audience. Like, I think that there's going to be big numbers for this particular event I do believe that we're going to see massive numbers right so it still is shining a light on the sport of boxing and keeping the sport of boxing relevant because I do think that there is a degree of uh of oversaturation in boxing there's

way too many belts way too many governing bodies and I think that turns a lot of people off it's a very difficult sport to keep track of for that reason. You know, if I said to you, who's currently like the WBC super middleweight champion? Are you going to know that off the top of your head? Canelo. Unless you're really... Oh, okay. Well, there you go. I was just throwing out a random division. I think that's right. How about super cruiserweight champion? Again, you get my point. When I come up with... Even people that are in the know of boxing, if I say, give me the cruiserweight champion of this governing body, you still have to dig deep to figure out exactly who it is a lot of the time, if you're not like a total boxing aficionado. So, while I do think that we are going to see kind of a circus atmosphere, I think that that's kind of something that is good for the sport of boxing in the sense that it still keeps people watching the sport. Whether that means they're going to watch more of the sport, I don't know. But it does still keep the

sport relevant. People are going to be talking about boxing this weekend. That's right. I think that is right. And also, listen, we've seen MMA promoters do it. And when boxing promoters do it, it's just a thing. It looks to me like they're overpaying for a lot of these guys. But I'll be honest, I don't care. because it's like ben askren was i think he told brendan chobb maybe other places this too this is his biggest payday ever ever for sure um crazy to think about that we think about i mean he was in some pretty big fights he main evented some like it's a pretty big deal this is his biggest payday ever and then you saw the purse bid for lopez you had the normal boxing promoters going two and some change,

three and a little bit. And then Triller comes in and doubles and triples that. And he bet on himself and he won. So I'm thrilled that they're going to get paid. I don't know how foreboding that is for their finances, but forget it. If the check's clear for the fighters, that's really all I care about.

So let's ask the chief question here. Do you have a lean in which way you think this fight might go? Well, I'll correct you. You said you were thrilled. You're actually trilled because being trilled is an onomatopoeia according to Bun B. So let's just get that straight.

By the way, how does Bun B not sue these guys? I mean, they took a word that he invented and made it their company. Oh, good point. Neither here nor there. Good point. Neither here nor there. But how do I think it's going to go?

I mean, it's interesting because I spoke to Gerald Mearschart this week, who's a former training partner of Ben, I guess still kind of a current training partner of Ben Askren and close with Ben Askren. And I said to him, how much did Ben Askren do in the striking sphere during his MMA career? Because his MMA career is a decade long, right? This isn't the guy who's, you know, a fly-by-night mixed martial artist.

And he said basically like two or three times a week, you're doing just striking. So he's in there with the likes of Mike Biggie Rhodes, with Anthony Pettis, and he's doing strictly, and of course, Duke Rufus is a kickboxer, and he's doing strictly striking stuff for a decade. So, you know, while he, of course, is not going to be the best representative of striking from the mixed martial arts sphere, you've still got a guy who has worked on that part of his game for a decade. Now, of course, he took the path of least resistance in his career.

He used his wrestling. But this is still a guy that has learned striking for over a decade. This isn't going to be a guy who's a total fish out of water here. And with that in mind, I have to believe that this is going to be an interesting fight for that reason. He's going to know how to grab on to Jake Paul, how to tire him out based on the different tactics that he's learned over the years on how to exhaust an opponent. He's got strategy in his mind in this sphere of what you can do to take an opponent out of their comfort zone because that's what he did in his mixed martial arts career. And I feel like that's something that he can do in this boxing match

against Jake Paul. Make Jake Paul uncomfortable. Do things that a guy like Nate Robinson would not know how to do in a boxing ring against him. To play to his strengths and also take him out of a spot where he's going to, you know, have been before in training. Because when you're training in boxing, you're not going to necessarily have guys that are going to be pushing you to your absolute brink. When you're sparring, you're not going to be going 100. I feel like Ben Askren is going to be able to do some things to Jake Paul that he hasn't seen before. Now, whether or not Jake Paul is going to be able to overcome that, we'll see. But we're not talking about a guy who is known for his athletic mettle.

We're talking about a guy who is known for subscribers. Right. I mean, I can honestly, more than entertain, I find an argument for either plausible. I can buy your argument 1000% I can also buy an argument that it's like you know Ben will do well for a little while and then we're going to be surprised or something by what Jake Paul has done and Jake Paul will put it on him because this is you know I don't know he's young and whatever like they're just surprising more

talent than than we assumed who was there I've been saying all this time, I don't know how people feel about it. I'm not sure it's the best explanation. It's the only one I can give. Folks always ask me, like, how good is Jake Paul? And I'm like, well, he's never fought a boxer in a boxing match. So we don't really know. But we know it's probably fair to conclude that he's got some ability. I call him a stunt boxer, Aaron.

Because if you pull off stunts, like if you're a stunt performer, that's actually quite difficult to do. You have to plan it. You have to train around it. You have to have a bunch of skills to pull it off. Like, you know, they're not easy to do, but it doesn't mean you have the same skills as someone who's doing the things in a much more larger, broader, more professional kind of way.

You're doing a certain kind of it, and you're doing it for a certain kind of way. So I tend to think he's got some abilities. Is that enough to beat Ben? It's like I also just can't lose sight of the fact that Ben had his hip replaced, and he's not been fighting. I don't know. Jake Paul is awful, but I don't want to totally dismiss his chances either. Yeah, and you know, I keep name-dropping people that I've spoken to this week, but it is what it is. I did speak to them. I spoke to Jorge Masvidal a couple days ago, and basically said to him the same thing I speak to them. I spoke to Jorge Masvidal a couple of days ago and basically said to him the same thing I said to you.

Wouldn't Ben Askren have had years and years of experience in sparring? And he said that he had heard from people that trained at Rufusport previously that Askren didn't take sparring, you know, striking seriously at all.

He wasn't in the gym doing striking training much. He knew that wrestling was going to be his way to win and that he could beat all of these great strikers using his wrestling. So he kind of diminished striking.

And that's why he feels that Ben Askren doesn't represent mixed martial arts in this fight, that Ben Askren represents wrestling in this fight, and, you know, Jorge said, it's like if I was to grapple at, like, the, you know, the ADCC level against top-level jiu-jitsu guys, I don't represent MMA in jiu-jitsu, I know that that's not necessarily what I'm best at, is, like, submission grappling, so when you take a guy that's best attribute is clearly his wrestling Jorge doesn't believe that you're going to have a guy that's truly representing

what mixed martial arts is all about or what the best of mixed martial arts could offer on the boxing level nevertheless he helped Jake get ready for this fight we'll see if that actually has anything to do let me ask you something I thought about this this week.

All these mixed martial artists want to fight the best boxers. We heard about Tyson Fury and Ganu this week. Why don't they just make boxing matches with four-ounce gloves? Like, boxing rules, four-ounce gloves. Wouldn't that make it a level playing field if you're going to talk about mixed martial artists going against boxers in their sport?

I think it makes it worse for the MMA fighters, probably. You think so? Because these guys get so much harder? Well, it makes it worse for the MMA fighters, probably. You think so? Yeah. Because these guys get so much harder? Yeah. Well, it's just, I mean, you know, Ben made this statement earlier this week

where he was like, it's so much easier to train boxing than it is for MMA. And there is clearly something to that, right? Because if nothing else, Aaron, the injury load you see from boxing, they have it. They tear labrums and, you know, they have problems in sparring,

particularly, you know, around brain trauma. But the standard kind of fight week where guys fall out from, forget COVID, just whatever, injuries, that doesn't, you don't see that nearly as much in boxing. So the idea that it's as taxing from an injury load standpoint as MMA is pretty clearly, you know, they don't suffer from that the way that we do. So I can buy that argument a little bit. But here's the thing I always try to tell people. It's like, yes, it is not as dynamic as MMA in the sense of how many weapons you have.

What you've got to understand is in that little universe they have, punching from the waist up, they've got every inch of that ring memorized. They know the whole thing, the tiny little windows in which they operate and the tiny little angles that they can take that are just a little bit different from yours it has a huge impact on the fight i always bring up bud crawford his last win over kel brook it was just a check hook he just threw it one out of nowhere and he did it in i mean it's like tom brady you know how it is you watch when you're throwing in, I mean, it's like Tom Brady, you know how it is, you watch NFL too, when you're throwing the ball to somebody, and it's like that, they thread that little window,

you know what I'm talking about, they thread that little window, that's what boxers can do, so it's easier in a sense, but it's still just as hard. Yeah, and you've got these guys in mixed martial arts training so many different elements all the time, it's really chess versus checkers, I hate to say it, I'm sure the boxing people are probably going to hate that analogy. But you're learning so many different tools. You've got your rook and your knight and your bishop and your queen and your king. Whereas with checkers, you've got your moves. And you can be great at that, and it still is impressive.

Like the best checkers player in the world is still certainly an impressive human being. But they have the ability to be able to specialize in that one area and make it just absolute mastery, whereas in mixed martial arts, you're learning so many different tools all the time that it's hard to have the sharpest knife in one particular tool when you're doing all of them all the time. I was just going to say, my daughter is screaming. You might hear her. She is rampaging back from the park, so you've been forewarned.

I was just going to say, what do you think the sales numbers are on this? I'm not sure what the pay-per-view costs. I think $50, something like that. To me, they're going to sell over a million on this. Oh, easily. I think $2 million is within the realm of possibility. I really do.

Sorry. I'm a little distracted. She's screaming as she goes up and down the room. You think $2 million is possible? I do, yeah. I think $2 million is possible? I do, yeah. I think $2 million is totally within the realm of possibility. And the reason why is because I think that during this pandemic era, you have so many people that aren't going out at night.

They're not necessarily going out to bars or whatever. And then you start to see hype build for something. And you're like, yeah, I got extra money. I haven't been able to go out as often as I'd like to. I'm not going to restaurants. People have more disposable income right now. You look at the stock market, they're going up. People are buying these NFTs.

People have money to spend. So if you say to somebody, hey, you can buy this great pay-per-view. You're going to be part of kind of a community for a night and you can talk about this with your friends and all of that. I think a lot of people

are going to be on board. Yeah, I've said about NFTs, they're not a scam, but I think people who love scams love NFTs. That's my crypto take for the day. Well, I'm not gifting you any Top Shot cards, Luke. You're out.

BC is going to get my Russell Westbrook limited to 35,000 NFT from NBA Top Shot, and you're getting nothing. I'll just say this to wrap up on the Triller card. I do think people are going to like it. I do think it's gonna do very very well i'm like i'll even admit i have a you know peek around the corner kind of curiosity for askren and paul i don't have that for cunningham and mere i also kind of worry i gotta tell you

what if mere and askren not just, but like take a fucking bath. It's like, dude, every time an MMA fighter tries to cross over, because you'd have to add in Mayweather and McGregor at that point, they wind up getting their ass whipped. If that happens, even though it doesn't necessarily mean what the public might think it means, the public might think it means that. Hey, and the boxing community has ray mercer to fall back on who beat tim sylvia in a mixed martial arts fight you've always got ray mercer so if an mma guy comes up to you fuck out too yeah yeah so if an mma guy comes up to you and

says boxers can't do mma you've always got ray mercer in your back pocket but we do have clay collard who's fighting in the pfl uh you know what checkmate bitches checkmate clay collard will fuck you up our guy but i'm just thinking about a mixed martial artist that can be good boxers we've got clay collard in our back pocket too let's not forget that i was just thinking about this too like what if they end up doing and who knows if they will but there's been rumors you've heard them i'm sure uh aaron of de la jolla we know he's making his comeback he announced it in july it'll be on triller i think somewhere I think in Texas. And they're talking about Eddie Alvarez boxing him.

Now, we both know Eddie Alvarez is absolutely not washed in any capacity. He's not maybe at the best of his career, but he's still got plenty of fight left in him. He's well-rounded. He can strike. And yet, at the same time, what if De La Hoya comes back, fights him in a boxing match, and then tunes him up? Which, by the way, is possible. It's like, dude, MMA fighters, if that happens and Askren and Mir end up getting knocked out,

we're going to have to have a talk with these MMA fighters about some of these checks they start accepting. Yeah, well, I spoke to my podcast co-host Joe Valtellini and I told him he should lobby for that De La Hoya fight. I want to see him box De La Hoya.ellini, and I told him he should lobby for that Delahoya fight. I want to see him box Delahoya. I mean, a world-class kickboxing champion. Oh, dude, Valtellini, that would be... Bazooka Joe would give him a run for his money, and probably beat him, honestly. Yeah, and Joe said that, you know,

people used to say that he looked like a young Delahoya when he was younger, that he looked like a young golden boy. So let's get... I'm starting the petition. Let's get Bazooka Joe Valtellini boxing against Oscar Delahoya on Triller. But, you know, Eddie Alvarez, as long as they don't have a soccer referee in there with their red cards, I think he the petition. Let's get Bazooka Joe Valtellini boxing against Oscar De La Hoya on Triller. But Eddie Alvarez, as long as they don't have a soccer referee in there with their red cards, I think he's okay.

By the way, Rashad said on, I think it was Wednesday's show, I was like, if they came to you, Rashad, retired Rashad, 41 years old, if they came to you to fight Jake Paul, would you fight him? He's like, I would fuck Jake Paul up. So I want to put that on the record. Yeah, that's what they all say. They all want that payday. It's a great payday.

It must be huge. Yeah, it must be huge. All right, lastly, I'll just mention this because I don't have a whole lot to say about it. Demetrius Andrade comes back this weekend taking on Liam Williams for the WBO middleweight title. He should beat the fuck out of Liam Williams. He has a very long reach and everything else behind it.

He's a very hard fight to win. And then Tony Harrison, who hasn't fought since 2019, is back against Bryant Perella. So there you go. All right. How many ways can we pronounce Andrade, Andrade?

We got Jessica Andrade next week. There's a lot of pronunciations. In the boxing, and his nickname is, I think it's Boo Boo. So they call him, every time I see his name, I'm always like, Demetrius Andrade. Oh, no way. He's not Boo. So they call him, every time I see his name, I'm always like Demetrius Andrade.

Oh, no way. He's not Brazilian. So there you go. All right. But usually it's Andrade also. That's right. That's right. All right.

So let's do this. We played this game with Rashad on Wednesday. We're going to play it with you now. It's called Getting to Know You. We're going to play it with Getting to Know Aaron, obviously, is the version that we're going to. It's a weird game, Aaron, because you can only really play it once. I mean, I guess you can play it multiple times, but you can really only play it once.

Now, I asked Rashad ten questions. Many of those questions are the same for you in the interest of consistency, but I've tailored them a little bit to make sure they fit you more appropriately. Are you ready? As long as we're not doing the depraved and demented Wheel of Doom, or whatever BC calls it. I'm not signing up for that, and you're a brave man for doing that every week, because that guy throws some of the weirdest stuff I've

ever heard at you, and you have to kind of tap dance around it for the sake of your career. You still want to put food on the table for your family, and he asks you questions where he's backing you into a corner and making you say weird stuff. I can't believe cancel culture hasn't come for us yet. It must be because we're not popular enough, but if we ever get there, they're going to

come for us. No, this is not like that. That's his brainchild. We have to let his projects live. This is my brainchild. It's a little bit more toned down. All right. Here we go.

Calories don't matter. You can indulge in whatever you want. Lay out for me the best meal you could think of. Okay, so for the appetizer, we're going to have a little sushi to start off. Like just, you know, some California rolls or something along those lines. Okay. And then we're going to have, because I can't eat everything, right? Like if I said, you know, I can, if calories don't matter or whatever.

So I'm going to do half of areal smoked meat sandwich from uh from schwartz's deli with a pickle and some mustard on it the other half is going to be like a nice steak like a nice a nice new york steak uh medium medium rare um is going to be alongside that and the reason why i picked the new york is not that big so i'll be able to eat both of those things. We're also going to have a lobster tail on that plate with some butter. Surf and surf. For good measure. Yeah, for good measure. And then for dessert, probably like a nice piece of

cheesecake. Like a nice... Or, you know what? I love cheesecake, but there's nothing better than a world-famous piece of key lime pie. I don't know if you've been to the... In Brooklyn, there's the juniors? That big food court? Yeah, and they have juniors there.

Yeah, like a great piece of key lime pie for dessert would be solid too. And then maybe for a beverage, we're going to have a nice Yamazaki 12 to wash things down at the end. This is so much better to ask you these things

because BC would be like, Doritos, ranch, orange crush. Yeah, 3D Doritos. Are you a heavy wasabi guy or no? Yeah. I take the soy sauce and I mix a big clump of wasabi into it and stir it around. You know that's a heathen move, right?

Why is that? So I had a guy who was, a buddy of mine, worked at a very, very high-end Japanese place in New York City. So high-end that I could not afford to eat there and actually never have. Also, it's hard to get into, but he was telling me, you don't do that. So first of all, I didn't know this you eat sushi with your hands not with any kind of utensil you can use chopsticks if you want to but you're not supposed to you definitely can't use a fucking fork but okay i prefer to use my hands anyways but yeah that's fine yeah the way that it works is this is how it's explained to me so if someone's a culinary expert by all means correct me but this is how I was told, that you actually have the ginger first to, actually after you eat it, to cleanse the palate, so in between, and then you would have the piece

of sushi. What you can do is you can take it by hand and then dip a corner into it of the soy sauce, and then you're allowed to then dip it a little bit onto the wasabi and then eat it, but you cannot mix the things together. They say that's a heathen move. Okay, well, then consider me a little bit onto the wasabi and then eat it but you cannot mix the things together they say that's a heathen move okay well then consider me a sushi heathen i'm not all right here we go at a japanese restaurant and they were saying do this that's like hot sake if you get hot sake they look at you sideways if they are if they're in the know on sake i've never had hot sake that's a north american uh move okay did not know that actually that's interesting i've

never had hot sake. I've had cold sake a lot. Cold sake is the way to do it. I've gone on sake distillery tours, and they say that hot sake is like a gimmick, basically. Okay, good to know, actually. I didn't know that. All right, here we go.

Number two. Not the top three. Your top three leading men of rock bands. Okay, well, you're putting me on the spot here. This is a tough one. Ray Davies would be on the list of the kinks. That's a deep cut. Okay.

Yeah, one of the great storytellers in rock music. We're talking rock band front men, right? Like, okay, so let's think here. Arthur Lee of the band Love. That's another deep cut 1960s guy could just do it all like tremendous tremendous voice um and i'm sure there's gonna be a lot of people that i'm forgetting here that like this is just off the top of my head no mick jagger no nothing like that i love mick jagger and i you know i love um bono you know

i love alex chilton of big star i love um you know love Paul Westerberg of The Replacements. He might be on that list. Yeah, it's a tough one, man. Let's say Paul Westerberg. Paul Westerberg of The Replacements. He's a phenomenal front man. So much energy, so much charisma. Where are you, rest in peace to the guy?

I forget his name, but I saw him years ago. I got free tickets, so I went to a... This must have been 1998 or 9. I got free tickets to go see Blues Traveler and the Tragically Hip. Oh, John Popper. Yeah. Or Gord Downie. The guy from Tragically Hip was pretty good, too, actually.

Yeah. Is John Popper still alive? Yeah. Oh, you know what? He's still alive. But he was a Twitter troll. He actually turned out to be... He was super fat, but he lost all that weight. Everyone was like, yeah, John Popper still alive? Yeah. Oh, you know what? But he was a Twitter troll. He actually turned out to be... He was super fat, but he lost all that weight.

Everyone was like, yeah, John Popper. And then he got on Twitter, and it turns out he's a fucking raging asshole. So now everyone is mad at him again. Why he got to make us run all around, Luke? You know what? What a prick, that guy. All right. Well, Gord Downie is a gentleman and a great singer, great frontman, and a real Canadian legend. So you're not going to hear me slagging Gord Downie Is a gentleman And a great singer Great front man And a real Canadian legend

So you're not going to hear me Slagging Gord Downie anywhere I think he's a great He's also a really interesting Like the way that he wrote lyrics Was very interesting Very Again

Kind of along the The Ray Davies Kind of storytelling Typewriting Which I really appreciate And he integrated So much Canadiana into it So he's a legend Gord Downie But I'm not the biggest hip guy, but you certainly won't hear

me slide Gord Downie. Neither am I. I didn't go listen to their albums afterward. But sometimes when you go and see an act you've never heard of or you weren't expecting, every once in a while, you'd be like, wow, that was way better than I thought it would be. The Tragically Hip that night were way better than I thought they were going to be. So there you go. All right. Number three. This is the same question I asked Rashad. What is the... Actually, I'm going to change it up for you.

What is the best action movie franchise? So it has to be one that they made multiple iterations of. Die Hard? You could go with Die Hard if you want to, but we have to make the case for it well i mean it's it's just it's a great like all of them are really good like i mean you're i don't think there's a single bad die hard movie so i'll go with the consistency really i mean i think that that's probably the easiest way of putting it you got you got a little bit of comedy interspersed you got good characters good characters. You're on the edge of your seat. Some people call Die Hard a Christmas movie,

so you can say that it's kind of a multi-genre spectacle. So, yeah, Die Hard. I fucking hate that people call it a Christmas movie. Same with me. I'm with you. It's not a Christmas movie. It just happens to take place during Christmas. Yeah, it's like, motherfucker, if you want to watch it on Christmas, just put it on on Christmas. Like, it's fine.

People are like, you can only watch Christmas movies on Christmas. You can watch whatever the fuck you want to watch it on Christmas, just put it on on Christmas. Like, it's fine. People are like, you can only watch Christmas movies on, you can watch whatever the fuck you want on Christmas. And you can, you know, enjoy it how you want, but it ain't a Christmas movie, and it's a dumb argument. And what's that rom-com, there's that rom-com that everybody calls a Christmas movie,

also there's not a Christmas movie, with Hugh Grant. I'm blanking on it, but yeah, it's not a Christmas movie. Like, Love Actually or some shit? Love Actually. Love Actually is not a Christmas movie. All Love Actually or some shit? Love Actually. Love Actually is not a Christmas movie. All right, here we go.

Number four. What is the best and the worst part about being Canadian? Now, notice what I said. I didn't necessarily say living in Canada. I said, what's the best and worst part about being Canadian? Well, I'm going to give some recency bias on the worst part. We can't get a vaccine right now. Let's get it together here.

Yeah, let's get it together here. So I'm going to use my recency bias for that answer. In terms of the best part, I mean, we got great health care. We got gun control. Those are things that I find I hold valuable. So I know a lot of people That are watching this right now Are going to be like

A stuck up Canadian Doesn't believe in I know Believe me Give healthcare a chance Try it out Yeah Try going to

Try going to your doctor's office And getting prescription medication And you walk in And they hand it to you And you walk to your car And you drive away Yeah That's kind of cool right

I know It must be nice It must be nice Alright here we go Number five In high school Which of the three That's kind of cool, right? I know. It must be nice. It must be nice. All right, here we go. Number five. In high school, which of the three most accurately describes you? I think I know what the answer is, but in the interest of fairness, we will ask you just the same.

Jock, math-lete, not athlete, but math-lete, or weird loner? It's really none of them. I mean, jock probably because I actually played sports. I was not a loner. I had lots of friends and we goofed around a lot. And I was terrible at math. I failed math two years in a row

and went to summer school. So by default, I ended up being jock. Let's back up a step. What were the sports you played in high school? I played basketball. But I wasn't like...

I played recreational basketball, recreational street hockey. Wait a second. How many people... Did you go to private school? like, I played recreational basketball, recreational street hockey. Wait a second. How many people, did you go to private school? No, I went to public school. I wasn't on the team or anything. I just played it. Oh, I see.

I played a lot of sports. Okay, when I say, okay, here when you say I played it, it means you were on the team. Yeah. No, no. I just played sports recreationally, but I wasn't a loner. I had lots of friends. Okay. And I certainly wasn't a math nerd because I was terrible at math.

So what would be the best way to describe you in high school? Give me a word. I was like a class clown. I was a goofball. Ah, okay. All right, class clown. Yeah. All right, here we go.

Class clown would probably be the best way to go about it. But of those three, I guess I was like, nobody would ever call me a jock. I would never be labeled that in like a million years. But I certainly wasn't a math lead. I hated math and failed it twice. I had to go to summer school, which was terrible. And I wasn't a loner. So I don't know.

Of the three things, I guess I played sports more than the other things or it was better than the other things. All right, fair enough. Number six, tell me about the first car you ever owned. It was a standard Volkswagen Fox. And I had learned how to drive standard on it. And I didn't stick with it. I said, you know, like, I don't want to drive.

My dad was in the automotive industry. So he was able to get cars super on the cheap. So he brought home a Volkswagen Fox. I learned how to drive standard. He insisted that I learned how to drive standard. I drove standard. And I said, well, now that I know how to drive standard, I'd prefer to drive automatic

because it seems a lot easier. And then I upgraded the Volkswagen Fox to a Ford Taurus. So those are my first two vehicles. Yeah. I have the Ford Taurus.

All right. But my dad was like, my dad was, because he was in automotive, he was like, he would get cars really cheap, he would fix them up, he would let me drive them

for a bit, and then he would sell them and then get another car. And I would basically be the driver of his reclamation projects okay well you know what it's a good spot to be in yeah it's not the worst spot for a teenager to be in high school yeah all right just couldn't get attached and then i also had cars i had a car break down on me once in the center lane of the highway it stopped working and i had to like run over to the side of the highway and sit there for like 30 minutes and try not to get hit by a car so it had it up it had its ups and downs Jesus Christ all right uh

speaking of bad uh experiences number seven tell me about your worst airline experience it could be for any reason like mechanical trouble or just issues with ticketing or whatever but whatever it is I don't really have one I mean I I guess my worst one was kind of on a professional level we were flying down to uh cover Mayweather and McGregor, and our flight was delayed by like seven hours or something like that. And while it was delayed and we finally got up in the air, that was when the John Jones news broke. I think it was that he was getting stripped of the title, if I recall.

Oh, right. He had tested positive. So I had the flight run on time. I would have been able to get to UFC headquarters, talk to Dana, cover it. But so I was stuck on a plane. Mike Bond was on the same flight and made out with a girl on the flight that he had just met. So kudos to Mike Bond. Mike Bond, he looks and sounds like Kermit the Frog,

but he tends to find women a lot easier than you might imagine. All right. I'm teasing, by the way. What do you mean he looks like Kermit the Frog? Mike Bond's a handsome man. You take that back, sir. Okay, number eight. What is your favorite fighter walkout of all time?

And you have to set the scene here a little bit for us. I have a lot of them, so it's hard to narrow it down to just one. But I would have to say, and rest in peace to the late DMX, Anderson Silva's, because when he was walking to the cage back when he was the guy in the UFC, it felt like a holiday almost. It was a real moment when he was walking to the cage

because you knew that you were going to see something interesting and different. And you'd hear that music hit, and you'd see him walk to the cage. And it just kind of felt like a celebration. And that always will resonate with me. And whenever I hear that song, I think of Anderson Silva. And Anderson Silva at the time was my favorite fighter to watch.

He just did so many cool things in there that when he was coming out, you just didn't know what you were going to get that night. And I thought that the music kind of played into that. All right right number nine give me your most unpopular opinion about something related to mma uh i think there should be a half point scoring system oh that is unpopular all right people hate the half point scoring system because the commissions have to do math and they're terrible

at doing math and i know i said i failed failed math twice, but get a goddamn calculator and put decimal points in there. Because the 10-point must system does not work for MMA. It doesn't make sense. You're fitting square pegs into round holes here. Because not all rounds are created equal, and not all 10-9 rounds are created equal. And we need to have these kind of scores. Because I scored, and this is a thing that people ripped me for for weeks. I scored Jan Blachowicz

versus Israel for Israel. Because I thought Israel won the first three rounds, and I thought that Jan won the four and five. And I also scored Volkanovski versus Holloway for Volkanovski, and most people thought

Holloway won that fight. But not all rounds are created equal. And there were rounds where Jan had dominant, dominant rounds, but they weren't 10-8 rounds, they were 10-8.5 rounds, and if Israel won those other rounds, they'd be 10-9.5 rounds, they were so close, those first three rounds, and while I have gone back and watched it and realized the error of my ways and learned more about the scoring system, I do believe that if you're able to take rounds and have 10-9.5, 10-9, 10-8.5, you're going to give a more accurate picture of how the rounds actually went.

Because you can see a 10-9 round where a guy is absolutely demolishing somebody, but not to the extent that it would be a 10-8 round. And then you can have a 10-9 round where a guy lands three kicks versus two in a round, like the Derek Lewis versus Francis rounds. How do you score those rounds? Those are 10 to 9.5 rounds. Nothing really is going on. There's no damage happening, it's just, you got one guy landing four punches, one guy landing two, it doesn't have an accurate representation of how it's going,

so let's say this, let's say that Derek Lewis, if you gave Derek Lewis the first two rounds of that Francis fight, and they were very close rounds, and then in the third round, Francis knocks Derek Lewis down once, and staggers him and tries to finish him, but it doesn't. And it's just a flurry that lasts about 20 seconds. That's still a 10-9 round. But Derek Lewis wins the fight because he barely won two rounds. It's not the way that MMA should be scored. I generally agree with you, although in that sense, I can't prove it because we just need a lot of data like in all seriousness people have a lot of ideas we don't really know until someone tries it and measures it

you know to really know for sure if it's the right idea but I tend to think like I'm one of those guys who you know Chachri Sitya Tong I don't believe anything that comes out of his mouth but I will say that one championship

and their rules about judging fights as a whole which of course they borrowed from Pride I tend to think you get better outcomes that way I can't prove that because there's a lot of counterfactuals that we just don't really know but at the same time it would actually solve the same problem you're talking about because if somebody eked out and I do mean eked out two rounds but then got dropped in the third if you're judging it as a whole you would say who did the most important work in this contest? It would be the one who dropped the other guy. So I don't think it's the same way to get

to what you're talking about, but I can't prove that either. Well, there's a reason why one championship gets billions of viewers while other promotions get millions. The proof is in the pudding. You know what? Who can argue with that logic? Alright, I'm going to call this last, but not quite. But this is technically the last one on the list. I'm going to call this last, but not quite.

But this is technically the last one on the list. I'm going to ad lib one more after this. But for this one, tell me about the first time you met Brian Campbell. The first time I met BC, I don't know if it really stood out to me. I probably just met him on the road and we started chatting and that's it. I don't have a real great story about the first time I met BC. But I did know that from meeting BC that he was a special type of guy. I don't have a real great story about the first time I met BC, but I did know that from meeting BC that he was a special type of guy. I really connect well with BC, and him and I,

we chat a lot about music. He sends me a lot of messages, and this is a guy that loves to go down rabbit holes. Brian Campbell's not the kind of guy that likes something. He loves things. He finds things that he likes, and he wants to soak in as much information about them as possible. So him and I talk a lot about music and a lot of different things. And I get along. I like BC a lot. But the first time I met him, I couldn't pinpoint when or where that was. And it was probably just a quick interaction, a quick introduction. Hello, nice to meet you kind of thing.

He didn't offer to help you score drugs? He did not. No, he did not offer to help me score drugs. Lucky you. Not all of us have that experience with him. Is that when you first met him,. No, he did not offer to help me score drugs. Lucky you. Not all of us have that experience with him. Is that when you first met him that's what he did?

No, no, no, no, no. I just like to slander him unfairly. Okay, well there you go. That's it. Last but not least, is there a question you've always wanted to ask Dana and just didn't?

Is there one thing, one piece, not even that so much actually, what's one piece of information you wish you could get from Dana if you didn't? Is there one thing, one piece, not even that so much actually, what's one piece of information you wish you could get from Dana if you interview him? Well, I always try to get data from him that like, like tangible data. And he often has it in front of him. But I don't know, like, there's a lot of stuff that you ask Dana, and he's very focused on fight week. And in the fights coming up that week, where the question would kind of come out of left field. It's hard to ask him the question that I would want an answer to

that he would be able to pull out of thin air. So there's a lot of questions that I would love to ask him about. I think I asked him about the class action suit that the athletes had filed, and he was just like, you have to talk to our legal team about that, and that's a fair answer. I don't expect him to know all of the inner workings of what's going on with every little thing, especially when he's got a fight to look forward to, because he really does get wrapped up in whatever's

coming up that weekend. Anything you ask him outside of that, he really needs to kind of stop and take a step back, because he's so much in pay-per-view mode or fight mode or whatever it is that's coming up that week. So that's kind of the difficult part about interviewing him. You kind of need to know how to read the room when you're talking to him.

I can tell when I'm going to be able to get something out of him and when to just kind of stop the line of questioning and move on to something else because otherwise he might shut down on me, and I don't want that because he is very focused on what's going on as a fight promoter that particular week so I have to be very picky about what I ask him that that is outside of whatever that realm is I have to tell you when you asked him what his favorite books were he told you he didn't like books he doesn't read that was a fun moment I I know you love that clip but uh yeah him and I I have that in common I don't read a lot of books either. Oh, bullshit. I mean, I read lots of books. But seriously, I don't.

I read mostly non-fiction books, and I read maybe one or two books a year. I'm sure you're an avid reader. I've got three kids, Luke. I don't have a lot of time. Most of the books I read are children's books that I read to my kids. I will say that getting reading time is hard. I've only got the one kid, and reading time has obviously been a little bit impacted by it. But not so much that I can't get it done. Okay.

Just one thing left to do here, Mr. Bronstetter, which is our segment, our famed segment, tip to tip. It's where we just give the audience something to pay attention to. Hey, here's a movie coming out. I read this book. Check out this article. Look at this piece of artwork. Here's some strategy on going to the gym. Whatever you want it to be. Any piece of advice or recommendation that you would want to give the audience, you have the floor. All right. Well, in the spirit of what we're talking about with BC earlier, my love of music, I've got music of different genres that I'd like to recommend. And as you can see behind me here, these are not books or magazines like BC thought they were. These are records.

So I've got a vast record collection. So we'll start with the jazz genre. We've got Braja. This is a great Canadian jazz musician from Montreal. I would highly recommend Braja. If you're a big fan of jazz, this isn't the guy that a lot of people know about. This is released on an Estonian record label called RR Gems.

Check out Braja. We'll move over to the rap genre. We've got Psychodrama by Dave. This is just a, if you don't know about Dave, British rapper, young guy. And this is, you know, there's a lot of storytelling involved. And I love a record that has a lot of good storytelling, you know, similar to Mike Skinner of The Streets, another one of his British brethren. Psychodrama by Dave would be my recommendation there. Didn't Prince Paul make an album like that? Prince Paul, yeah. Let me see if I have it here, actually.

Which Prince Paul album are we talking about here? The concept album he made in like 99 or 98. I forget what the name of it was. Here. A Prince Among Thieves. Prince Paul. Oh, look at that. Dude, your collection is legit, look at that. That is great.

See, that was not rehearsed, I just happened to have that with me. So, when the seasons start changing, and you can drive around with windows open, and you want something upbeat to listen to, I'm always going for Queens of the Stone Age. This is Songs for the Deaf, fine folks from Vinyl Me Please put out a reissue, or reissued this album. Awesome record. I listened to Rated R the other day with the windows cracked. It's just, it's a good record and a good band

to get your blood flowing on a nice day. And in the spirit of metal, because you are a big metal guy, We Hunt Buffaloes, Heades head smashed in nice metal band from vancouver another canadian shout out hold on hold on uh cory go full screen i want to see the cover of this let me see look wow look at that artwork that artwork is legit i actually have a tattoo of this on my back luke uh if you If you did, we would be friends for life. Well, I hope we already are.

Yeah, we might just be, but that would really seal the deal. Dude, sell me on something. I don't have a strong opinion either way. I don't have really an opinion at all either way, which I know that may sound crazy to you, given that I have opinions about everything, but on this one, I don't. Sell me on the benefit or the necessity or the difference,

like the positive difference that listening on vinyl makes versus a nice sound system digitally. I think it's experiential. And the reason why I'll say that is because, yeah, if you listen to CDs or SA CDs, you're going to get good quality, great quality audio. You know, a lot of people have kind of poo-pooed CDs in recent years, because now you can listen to everything digitally. And I think the reason for that is because you don't get the same kind of experience listening

to a CD as you do taking a big, stonking record out of a sleeve, looking at it, checking out the grooves, making sure there's no dust on it, putting it on a record player, lifting the needle, putting it down, and just sitting and listening to it, looking at the album artwork in front of you, any sort of booklet that comes with it. I think it's completely experiential. I'm not the type of guy that will diminish the digital experience. I subscribe to Tidal. I love listening to music on the go.

That's my go-to. I have smart speakers around the house. I'm not a vinyl-only kind of guy. But at night, if I want to have 45 minutes to myself where I can sit down, glass of whiskey, music, throw on a record, that way I'm focusing on just the music. And I think that that's what kind of differentiates vinyl

from other forms of audio. Listen, some people argue that if you get good audiophile records, you have a good system, you get the optimal audio quality. And while that may be true, that's not necessarily the experience that I'm looking for when I'm listening to a record. While it does, of course, help to have a record that doesn't have scratches all over it and isn't all kinds of fuzzy. But one of the best quotes, and I'm trying to remember who to attribute this to, but it's, life has surface noise, is the quote. And that quote always resonates with me when it comes to listening to a record.

Because records are imperfect, and you're going to get surface noise along the way. But life has surface noise. And I think that that's why I encourage people to go out and get a record player. Don't get a Crossley. Get something nice. Get a nice project record player. Hook it up to some speakers. Get one, two records to start off.

Experience it, and maybe it's for you. You know, it's funny. You say it this way. There's a tattoo guy who I really like, and he has said that his favorite tattoos are the ones... This is the way he said it, but I'll explain what he means. He says his favorite tattoos are the ones you can tell were done by a human. And what he meant by that was, obviously,

I suppose there might be some robot who can do it, but in general, all tattoos are done by a human. And what he meant by that was, obviously, I mean, I suppose there might be some robot who can do it, but in general, all tattoos are done by humans. But what he meant was not that you were looking for imperfections or that you wanted errors in the application of a tattoo, but that when you could find little moments that you knew something was drawn by a human hand based on the way that it looked, or you could just tell there was a human, imperfect, but still artistic application. To your point, it's not maybe the cleanest pure sound on the vinyl, but there's something much more human about being able to witness what some people might call imperfections.

To him, they're just a reminder of the humanity that was brought to the artwork. I've always really appreciated that. Yeah, it's a perfect analogy. And music is imperfect. You're always going to hear interesting things. And I think there's a real purity to... I've really gotten into jazz music a lot lately. Me and BC talk a lot about jazz music. I just feel like there's a real purity to listening to jazz music. And that's something that actually has really helped me during my preparation for interviews and just my work is listening to jazz music

and just letting the kind of creative juices flow. I think that, and you can get that from a lot of other genres of music, but I feel like, and I'm also an old white guy, as you pointed out, that's kind of the genre of choice. Yes, I mean, if you were gone, I had to sub in another white dad,

so that's what the show's about. I guess so. Okay, well, for my tip, if I may, I will go with staying with the music theme. I am very excited to announce today, the 16th of April, you can go and listen to it right now on vinyl, by the way, if you have that out there, but if not, you can listen to it right now on vinyl by the way if you have that out there but if not you can listen to it on spotify or everywhere else the 15th studio album from the most important death metal band ever violence unimagined is out today the 15th studio album from cannibal corpse

and this one's a little bit interesting because their guitarist famously had a mental breakdown he's got some real issues he was basically removed from the band in 2019, and they brought in longtime producer. He's been a guitarist and a singer for other bands, Eric Rutan. He is on the guitars for this one. If you're looking at some of the early reviews of this record, they're quite good, and I've been listening to it. This is going to be a hard argument to make for people

who aren't automatically into something that sounds like noise and people making terrible sounds with buzz saws and everything else. But if you're into this kind of a thing, to me, this feels like a little bit of a return to some of their earlier sounds.

A little bit thrashy. There was one sound that was a little bit deathcore-y, but it was a bit of a breakdown, but not really. In general, I find that this bringing in Eric Rutan had a great impact on the songwriting, had a great impact on the sound. I will say something kind of interesting, Aaron. You might be able to have an opinion about this.

If you look at Cannibal Corpse's song titles now, they are what you think they would be, you know, like Death Comes to Us and blah, blah, blah, like these like terrible imagery. But even if you listen to their album title, Violence Unimagined, it has a real certain sensibility to it, obviously. But I wonder if they're affected by the modern pressure to sanitize content. I'll give you an example. If you go look at some of their old album titles or song titles like Stripped, Raped, and Strangled. Or, you know, Ripped from a Virgin Sea.

Like really out there titles. They don't do that anymore. They still have death imagery. But it's a little cleaner than it used to be. And I wonder if all of the controversy that they courted with Bob Dole in the 90s, they may have had enough of it and they toned it down just a little bit. Yeah, I heard those albums you mentioned were actually the working titles for recent Ariana Grande albums, but she found out they were taken previously, so she just was unable to use them.

Right. You've got to avoid those lawsuits. Still, still, if you're into this kind of thing and i grant that most people won't be but for those of you who are um or you missed the news or you haven't heard it yet violence unimagined out today 15 studio album from the greatest band ever from the death side of metal uh there you go can't miss it all right uh aaron it has been wonderful having you here you are our official canadian i don't want to call you a correspondent but certainly relief pitcher you're you're the uh we got to play enter sandman whenever you walk out like they did for what's his face from the

yankees i forget his name now um rivera mariana rivera maria mariana rivera yeah uh but it's been great having you here do you want to plug anything before you go we can put up the socials at the bottom of the screen here. Yeah, I mean, check me out on social media, at Aaron Bronstetter. That's where you can find most of my content. I'll always post links over there. And I really appreciate you having me on the show.

You can go to tsn.ca slash UFC for all of our UFC coverage. And watch me on TSN SportsCenter and wherever else you get your sports content in Canada. And like I mentioned off the top, I'm going to continue to be a company guy. If you want Showtime original programming in Canada, subscribe to Crave TV today. There you go. And I will say, for folks who may have been asking why we bring on Aaron, I just wanted to say, Aaron, while you're on the air with us here, you know, I really am a fan of your work.

I think you do. I think you're fair. I think you try to have a positive outlook, not one that blinds you, but one that keeps you engaged. You ask the right questions. And I really think you're an invaluable asset to the MMA media community.

So we love having you on the show and I'm sure we'll have you on in some capacity soon again. Well, thank you. I appreciate it. I mean, you heard my take on Triller earlier, my positive rose you know, rose-colored sunglasses

approach on them and their business model. So, hey, I mean, if I like that and I cover this sport, you know you're getting all positivity from here. All right, real quick reminder,

if you want to email the show, we've not done Dead Wrong this week or The Wheel or whatever. We're going to bring all that back when BC comes back. But still,

send us your fan submissions. Send us your dead wrongs. We'll get back to those. MorningCombat at gmail.com is the place for that. Obviously, you already saw the socials. If you want to try Showtime, tonight is Bellator 257. You can go to Showtime.com,

get a 30-day free trial. If you like it, you can keep it. If not, it's okay. If you're ready to take that plunge, there's your URL, show.com slash Bellator MMA, first six months, $4.99 a month, if you are interested in all of

that um let's see like the video hit subscribe you can check out our merch store.show that's sho.com you got to live in the lower 48 but other than that you can get it and uh for now anyway and i think that's it all right um go check out aaron tsn.ca slash UFC. Bellator tonight. I'll be on CBS Sports HQ for that. For Brian Campbell, for Aaron Bronstetter, for the great country of Canada, Malka, Showtime, and CBS Sports, I'm Luke Thomas.

Until Monday, may all of your gains be loyal. Thank you. We'll be right back. We'll see you next time.