MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Whittaker vs. Till, Werdum-Gustafsson, Herb Dean-Dan Hardy Controversy | MORNING KOMBAT | Ep. 53

Episode Date: July 27, 2020

On episode 53 of Morning Kombat, Brian Campbell is out, so Luke Thomas fly's solo to break down everything that happened during this weekend's UFC fight island event including Robert Whittaker's big win over Darren Till. He also talks Bellator's return to action and what we can expect going forward.  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. from this place and a bunch of other ones. And I usually point to that side of the screen to get my co-host in here. But A, he turned 42 over the weekend. And B, he's on vacation. Brian Campbell from CBS Sports is not here today. He is out there chilling and drinking beer, eating hot dogs from Cumberland Farms or wherever the hell he's doing. But he's not here on Morning Combat. He'll be back next week, of course. And we will rock and roll with all of the stuff that we normally do, but my man is taking a bit of a break and a bit of a hiatus.

We wish him well and a happy birthday and all that good stuff. So today, we're going to be doing things a little bit different. We put out a call for questions on Instagram yesterday. We're going to answer those. Plus, if you have a question for today's show, put it in the YouTube chat. We've got people monitoring it. We're going to get to those as well. It's going to be a long Q&A episode detailing the Fight Island experience, Till Whitaker, Bellator 242, really whatever is on your mind. Okay, so this is really your chance to steer the

show today. We're going to try this out, see how it goes. If it's great, we'll do it again. Maybe Brian can do it when I'm absent or whatever. Certainly it's not the same thing, obviously, when one of us is not here, but we wanted to make sure we at least gave you some kind of content on a Monday to keep going. So we appreciate everyone who is showing up and giving this a try. We are indebted to you. As always, a couple of housekeeping notes. Please give the video a thumbs up and subscribe

to the channel. If you'd like to try Showtime for free, you can do that. You can go to showtime.com. You can try it for 30 days. If you like it, you can keep it. If not, you can pound sand. Always a great place to try that. And store.show.com for any Morning Combat merchandise. One note, if I may, and this is very unscripted. We had a lot of people asking, like, hey, why can't you do a whole thing with Chuck Bendenhall, the man in the hat? Now, he is still very much the third sort of member of this panel. But the way this technology works, believe it or not, you have to have a bunch of special gear. And if we Skyped it in, we would have to change the whole format and it wouldn't be right. So we are definitely going to have Chuck on again in the future.

Nothing about that has changed. But the particular way in which we organized the show would have to change for everybody to bring in one person off of Skype. Pretty great technology, obviously. So that won't work for this time. That's why we didn't go that direction. Just so everyone knows. But Chuck is great. He'll be back. Just weren't able to make it work this time. Okay. As I mentioned, you can follow Morning Combat on Instagram at Morning Combat. We got a bunch of your questions yesterday. One more time, if you have a question, put it in the live chat window right now on YouTube. We will filter them out, get the best ones, and we will get to them both during the course of the show and then after we get through all of the Instagram ones. We'll do exclusively YouTube at that point, but there's no

time like the present. Get them in now. All now all right with that being said let's get the questions started here on the instagram side of things um and jay will be here too by the way jay is here uh intrepid producer jay do you have the uh air conditioner next to your uh audio system again uh the air conditioner one more time the air conditioner has been turned off uh so even though it's 93 degrees shock Shocker that he's already effing this up. I'm here. I'm here. Yeah, the air conditioner is off. It's very hot.

It's 93 degrees, and I will sweat it out for the benefit of this program. All right, very good. Well, don't get a heat stroke, because if you do, I'm going to laugh at you in an unrelenting kind of way. All right, let's get this started. A lot to get to, not a moment to waste. Let's do this, Jay. First question is from mheydoc05. Who did we learn more about this weekend, Till or Whitaker?

You probably learned a little bit more about Whitaker, I would argue. This actually turned out to be one of those situations where the fight itself, first couple of rounds were great where both guys got dropped. But I think in the end, what you really learned, or actually the way in which it played out was probably beneficial for both guys in the sense that while Till lost, he's the younger of the two. He still has more room to grow. It's only his second fight at 185 pounds, and he looked

pretty good against Whitaker. Whitaker even saying it was a chess match. It was hard to figure out. He couldn't get a read on the feints. He was really complimentary of the task at hand and how difficult it was for him up until the final bell. And so you thought, well, maybe Till didn't get the win, but he looked like a pretty capable operator in there. Whitaker benefits because A, he won. B, he also dropped Till himself. And while he got dropped, you didn't get the sense that he was shopworn. You didn't get the sense that whatever burden was laid on him physically from the Romero fights were ones that he could not overcome, that he was stuck in these positions, that this was something that was going to be

a real major Achilles heel. I don't know that either of them came out of this fight being like, wow, these guys are definitely going to give Adesanya a run for his money. But Adesanya has his hands full with Paulo Costa. And so in the sense that neither of them had their weaknesses overly magnified, but I thought their strengths kind of were, it's really not that bad. Till comes up short, but is young, can regroup. Whitaker gets his hand raised, gets back in the win column, does so, by the way, using his wrestling, much more patient execution execution some of the things he was throwing looked a little bit one note there were times where he was trying some of his bag of tricks and you could tell he was going back to the well over and over a little bit maybe too much

but in terms of just getting uh a necessary w and then using a broader array of skills to put himself in a position to either get a title shot from the winner of Costa and Adesanya. Or at a bare minimum, you know, number one contender fight. Depending on what UFC wants to do at this point. It's not really clear. Yeah. So I'd say you probably learned a little bit more about Whitaker in terms of just how damaged is he. Probably some.

Maybe not as much as our worst fears. Till, how good is he probably some maybe not as much as our worst fears till how good is he maybe not as much as we had thought but he has time to grow into it and i think that's the key all right question two from j underscore har of 28 there is a small wave of fans stating till won the fight versus whitaker Do you feel they have justified points or just bias? Well, every fan has bias. That's not, wouldn't be exclusive to anybody, any one particular group. No, there's not much of a case, I think, for Till to win. It's close, right? So they, each of the first two rounds will go one way. It gets a little bit tight through the middle and then at the end I thought Whitaker was sort of the guy who had done enough um he was landing a little bit more consistently I haven't seen the fight metric numbers by the way all those numbers they show on the screen

during the fight itself are not worth taking seriously they're always approximate and wrong so don't look at them But if we look at the actual final numbers, actually they didn't score Darren Till even getting a knockdown. That's funny. They gave Whitaker one in the second round. So they scored about the same amount of strikes in the first. Whitaker landing 42 to 43 for Till Till 15 of three in the second 13 to six in the third for Whitaker 13 to eight in the fourth and then 17 to 12 in the fifth now those

are numerical totals not qualitative but in terms of overall strikes landed, the significant ones, it was 69 for Whitaker, 41 for Till. Whitaker attempting 188, Till attempting 108, and then he got two of 13 takedowns as well, and was credited with a pass. It's going to be hard to argue that Darren Till won. Fans are going to pick the guy that they like, and that's understandable, but there's not much of a case. All right, moving on. Question three from A. Admiakala. Who do you think is a tougher matchup for Whitaker next, Kananir or Hermansen? All right, so Styles make fights. Kananir beat Hermansen,

but that doesn't tell us necessarily who's a tougher matchup for Whitaker. So who would be a tough matchup for Whitaker? Guy who could take him down ostensibly, be bigger than him, good gas tank, counter fighter more naturally. I don't know that I would favor either guy to beat him.

Hermansen could make it interesting on the ground, potentially, right? Because he likes to, he's got a bit of that Kamzat-Chemayev bit where when he goes for the takedown, he likes to pass right away. He doesn't waste a whole lot of time. So there's that.

Kananir, on the other hand, is a little bit more well-rounded. The thing is, I just don't think Kananir is much of a matchup on the feet. And Hermansen could maybe give him a little bit more trouble on the ground. So maybe Hermansen. But neither guy is exactly... I would not expect either guy to win in that case.

That doesn't mean that they can't or they won't, but those would not be the guys that I pick to do that. All right, moving on. Question four from SportsGuru4000. Who should Till fight next? Great question. So if we examine the rankings, which are, again, very approximate, but provide at least something of a roadmap for the future, I wouldn't want to do the Gastelum rematch.

Hermansen just won, which means he's going to be closer to the top five than Till. So you could do the winner of Shabazian and Brunson. That'd be an interesting one, right? That's probably the way I would go. Shabazian and Brunson's going to have a three-round main event in the next UFC. Shabazian appears to be

just on an absolute rocket ship. Hits hard. Makes great decisions. Puts tons of pressure on guys. Young. Athletic. It's amazing, right? Like if Shabazian ends up being great decisions, puts tons of pressure on guys, young, athletic. It's amazing, right? Like if Shabazian ends up being really, really good, which we're getting very much ahead of ourselves,

but let's just say for the sake of argument that he does, Shabazian's going to end up being the second guy that Edmund Tarverdian has as a UFC champ. I mean, I realize that's getting way ahead of ourselves. I understand. But if it does happen, Tarverdian has been widely maligned as like something of a fraud. And then for him to have not one but two different fighters to be UFC champions, it's like could you imagine a coach with a worse reputation

and a better resume in that sense? It'd be hard to imagine him. So I would probably go the winner of Brunson and Shabazzian. That's the way I'd be looking at it. Let's go next. All right, we got dip3886 says, From a technical standpoint, how does Whitaker versus Till match? Compare against Volkanovski versus Holloway too.

From a technical standpoint, how does it match? Not much. A little bit similar, where you had Till sort of tall, somewhat counter-fighting, standing in a southpaw position, which made things a little bit different. It was a little bit similar, where you have Whitaker sort of blitzing from the outside, sort of fainting, changing up looks, looking like he's going one way, then goes the other, smaller, using wrestling a bit to take down and sort of control the taller guy late. There are some overlaps, but the way in which Whitaker strikes relative to Volkanovski is just incredibly different. Volkanovski is constantly using motion. He's not bouncing on his feet. He's a step and slider. He's really

splitting timing all the time, using leg kicks as a rhythm and stance disruptor. That's not exactly who Whitaker is. Whitaker's a little bit more, he does some of that, of course. He's a little bit more, the two are very different still. Whitaker's a little bit more like Wonderboy, where he's bouncing, bouncing, bouncing blitz, you know? That's just, that's not who Volkanovski is. And Till has something similar to Holloway, but they are all sufficiently different.

All right, from SeanKelly88. Looking at Darren Till's career so far, is he overrated, underrated, or any other adjective you might find applicable? To me, he has been both. The problem with Till is that he's changing fight over fight, not merely in terms of his development as a fighter, but in terms of his approach to the game,

figuring out how he wants to compete, changing weight classes, and he's still very young. I think, was he 26, 27, something like that? How old is Darren Till? Let me make sure I get that before I misstate it. Darren Till is currently sitting at a guy who was born in 1992. I was in 7th grade in 1992.

He's 27 years old. So, you know, he has still just not quite figured himself out yet, which means as he has beaten good guys and put himself in a position to do well in various divisions, some of those leaps happened in ways where the bracketing wasn't quite right. What does bracketing mean? I always use this analogy. The way in which modern military artillery works is something called bracketing, where the Russians invented this. People don't realize this. Those big cannons that fire, they don't need to have direct hits. It's not what you need. You just need to get close. And the way they do it is they would

purposely overshoot and then undershoot and then use that as a bracketing system to get closer to something approximating a kill shot. We have sort of overshot him and then underplayed him and then overshot him and then underplayed him. I think the general process will tell us over time where he ends up being, but he is still very much a work in progress, so we don't really know. So, you know, was he overrated

maybe heading into the Tyron Woodley fight? Probably. Was he somewhat underrated, I think, heading into the Tyron Woodley fight? Probably. Was he somewhat underrated, I think, heading into the Kelvin Gastelum fight? Probably. And then this one, he was very, very competitive. It wasn't like it was some blowout. Again, the calls that he may have won or should have won,

I think, are kind of silly. But it was not some, like, you know, dramatic difference. I mean, it was tight to the end. So you just have to realize a lot of guys figure out their games early, like who am I? How do I want to fight? How do I do this?

How do I get better? And some take time. And it looks to me like Till is very much in the formulation of that still. Some of his skills are just, they're kind of nascent and they take time to get going. So let's just see. Let's just

see how things go. Let's just see how he develops. That's never a great answer. It's like, is he overrated, underrated? Both. That sounds like you're dodging. But at various times, some people are just easier to peg as, okay, this guy is very, very promising. He can go far. This one isn't. And then there are guys like Till that have these moments of inspiration followed by these reality checks and you never know which way is coming or going. If he was 37, I would be much more dismissive of his upside. But because he has the big wins and he's 27, I am much more willing to say there is a lot of development in his future that in the next three years, you'll know more. By 30, you'll have a much keener sense of who he is. All right, from at 76tharms. 76tharms.

Yeah, 76tharms. Did Whitaker's post-Romero wars burnout contribute at all to his loss against Izzy? If so, would he fare better in a potential rematch now that he is supposedly motivated again? Or is Israel just simply that much better? I did not see a whole lot in this fight that would tell me that the chance of beating Adesanya went up significantly. If you want to say it would go better than the first fight, sure. Because he was using his wrestling in this one. He was taking his time.

He was much more patient. If he didn't like the look, he was resetting. He was resetting. He was resetting. There was all kinds of stuff he was doing that was much more patient. If he didn't like the look, he was resetting, he was resetting, he was resetting. There was all kinds of stuff he was doing that was much more deliberate and effective this time than the first time out. I'm perfectly willing to admit that. And I also believe that those, I mean, how do you do 10 rounds with Yoel Romero and it has zero effect? Really? 10 rounds with that guy and you just came out on the other end the exact same? I don't believe that either.

Still, perhaps some of the pronouncements of the damage are somewhat overstated. And it is clear that he was able to be much more thoughtful this time. I did not find his last approach to be all that thoughtful. It seemed hurried to me and he paid the consequence for it. So can he beat Adesanya? Maybe. Can he do better

than he did the first time? No doubt in my mind. I still didn't see anything coming out of this though that really told me that he had some kind of approach that would trick Adesanya or fool him or sort of expose some kind of weakness. I just didn't see that. From at Little Cameron, In the post-fight press conference, Till noted that Whitaker's wrestling facilitated some of his striking, and therefore Izzy would be an easier fight for him. To what extent was Whitaker's wrestling a factor, and how would you see Till Adesanya matchup play out?

Till noted Whitaker's wrestling facilitated some of his striking. Yeah, I mean, the level changing, he would press him against the fence, then drill him on the clinch breaks. Dude, people keep doing this thing with Adesanya. They're like, oh, all you have to do is this one thing a little bit different, and then the fight itself will be totally different.

This rank disrespect of him is just alarming to me. Yes, again, there is no denying, if you can establish a takedown threat, bring someone's hands down, make them look in the wrong direction, misjudge an attack, misjudge the timing of an attack, get pressed against the fence,

which reduces your movement, all of these things will contribute to your striking in a very meaningful way. If you guys think that Adesanya also doesn't know that and that he doesn't have an answer for that, I'm not really sure what to tell folks. You know, Till is probably doing the right thing to be complimentary of Whitaker, and that's fine. And again, I am perfectly happy to admit that a rematch between them would be probably a five-rounder, right, in all likelihood, or certainly go past the second. I mean, I think that's completely reasonable.

But that these are some kind of, you know, dim-mock, holy crap, ace in the hole, what are we going to do now kind of scenarios, no. Like, that's not at all what this is. Not even close. And even if you credit those two takedowns that he got, it wasn't like there was a significant amount of damage that resulted from them. I mean, they may have been disrupting to rhythm and expectations, and that's not nothing.

But that's not enough to beat Adesanya. Frankly, if I can just be honest about this, I actually feel like Paulo Costa is not getting the respect at all that he deserves. I don't think he's as cerebral a striker as Adesanya, but I don't think people... That's not what matters. That's not what matters. What matters for Costa is that he is a brutally hard puncher.

He has a ridiculous chin. He has not as much risk management, but that aids his current style perfectly. To me, it's like, who can make more mistakes in that fight, Adesanya or Costa? Costa's style is sort of predicated on, yeah, you've got to break a few eggs to make an omelet. That is not Adesanya's style is sort of predicated on Yeah, a few mistakes You gotta break a few eggs to make an omelette That is not Adesanya's style To be honest, everyone is focusing on How would a second fight with Whittaker go You better wait to see how Costa does first

To me, Costa is easily Easily The biggest threat that Adesanya has ever faced In the UFC, for sure And I would not be at all surprised if Costa won. And you guys know how very high on Adesanya's game that I am. I think he's sort of the modern archetype of striker. Costa is not, but Costa has such difficult to deal with forms of physicality that everyone talking about how he's not cerebral enough.

Man, talk about missing the force for the trees on this one. Put your attention there, and then we'll see what happens. Worrying about a rematch between those two right now is not where I would be focusing my attention. Till coughed a lot during the fight. This comes to us from J. Patty Dowd. Till coughed a lot during the fight. You comes to us from J. Patty Dowd. Till coughed a lot during the fight. You think he got a bad warm-up or is he even smoking Mad Stogies in Liverpool?

I don't know. From at OG91Pixel. Was that one of the greatest 60 seconds of grappling for Verdum to snatch that arm after that takedown in heavyweight history? The Gracie brothers did a breakdown on it about how Verdum didn't have the second leg over the chest that he needed, went belly down, then used some of the space underneath to then kick over Gustafsson.

And actually, there was one detail that they didn't quite get to. I'm sure they saw it, but they didn't mention it in their breakdown, which was, if you noticed, there was a moment even after they rolled over. So now Gustafsson is on his back. He's got a gable grip, and Verdum is on top. Well, not on top, but sort of trying to free his arm. There's a moment there where Gustafsson almost sits up. And what you'll notice is Verdum had his legs crossed one way,

and then he switched it. Why did he switch it? Because what he did was he had the leg that was over the face of Gustafsson on top. Right? Like this. I'm trying to see what you guys can see. He had it on top like this. Yeah, there we go. He took the leg that was on top and put it underneath and used the outside leg to seal it down.

Why? Because if you ever do an arm bar, there's a lot of things that matter. One, you have to have tight hamstrings, right? You want your heels as close to your rear end as possible. That won't always be available to you, but it's a thing that you want. But the big key is you got to get, when you spin for an arm bar, potentially if you're coming from mount or underneath or whatever, you got to make sure you have maximum pressure over their face with your leg because that will prevent them from sitting up. And you'll see that he made that switch at the last second and then sealed the top foot with his outside foot, which put Gustafson back down again. And at that point, if you roll over and the other guy has good control over your

face, his hamstrings are tight, his knees are pinched together, and all you have is a gable grip, it's basically over for you at that point. I keep making this point, man. I don't know how this is even debatable. Verdum is by a mile the best heavyweight submission-oriented MMA fighter I've ever seen. Anywhere in MMA. And yes, there are some other ones that are worthy of great respect. Frank Mir, Josh Barnett, Noguera.

You might want to pick some other ones beyond that. Fine. They're all worthy of great respect. Frank Mir, Josh Barnett, Noguera. You might want to pick some other ones beyond that. Fine, they're all worthy of absolute respect too, but Verdum is better than all of them. Verdum won titles in jiu-jitsu at the highest level in a gi. He won it at the highest level with no gi. And then inside MMA has subbed Cain Velasquez. He subbed Noguera rather easily, by the way, and then subbed Fedain Velasquez. He subbed Nogueira rather easily, by the way, and then subbed Fedor from his guard.

It's not even close in terms of how good he is. Yes, the armbar that Nogueira had on Krokop is nice. The guillotine of Tim Sylvia after getting beat is nice. Frank Mir beating Nogueira twice was pretty great. His guillotine of Czech Congo was good. Breaking the arm of Tim Sylvia was pretty neat. Okay. Josh Barnett has had a million of these too.

There's been a lot of really great ones to come along. Dude, nobody has the overall resume this guy has. Nobody has the overall sophistication of skill that he has. And he has it with a lot of different things. From the back. From taking mount on Brandon Vera. Whether it's chokes. Whether it's arm bars. He's got total mastery.

Whether it's from the guard. Whether it's a triangle. All of it. It's effortless. He had one of these jiu-jitsu games where he could win in the gi. Then he could win in no-gi. Then he could take it to MMA. And he's perfectly effective.

Dude, he is just the king at heavyweight when it comes to submissions. There's nobody even close to his level. He has run away with the title and the little intricate details that he shows that sometimes go missing if you don't really pay attention. And that's true for all of us. Just sort of tell you there's a level of sophistication to what he's doing and improv and, you know, I mean, he's out there playing jazz on these fools and people are talking about, yeah, but Noguera had that nice arm bar back in the aughts over Crow Cop. It's like, it's not even remotely the same level of achievement.

It's much harder to sub guys now than it was then. And that's, that's not to say that's not very special in its own right, because that was where the game was at the time. Fair. You know, and then of course for Noguera to beat Bob Sapp. Amazing. Amazing. All these things are amazing. But there is one king of that hill at heavyweight when it comes to being like the best sort of submission

oriented heavyweight, and it's Verdum, and it's not close. Okay. From JGRivera12. Verdum and it's not close. Okay. From JGRivera12 What organization does Verdum have the best chance to win a title in? I feel he could make a run in the UFC

especially if DC and Stipe are planning to retire after their next fight. Somewhere outside of UFC, Bellator, he could maybe get a rematch against Fedor. One, you know, someplace other than UFC where he still is very good and can maybe win a title. He's more valuable to somebody else than he is to UFC at this point anyway, so it's better to maximize that value. All right pum pumbaa daddies that's a real name

does alex gustafson bite the itty bitty titty and fix the music like millie and vanilli and advance one way or the other or does he hit the spliff and call it quits it's a great question um i don't know what to make of what happened over the weekend. Like he came in at 240 and I was like, it's less than ideal. But he didn't look bad on the feet for as long as it lasted. And with Verdum on your back, like a world champion like that, it's going to go poorly for you. I don't know. I don't know. I didn't, I was hoping to like, I even tweeted before the fight. I was like, I don't even know what to make of this dude at 240 pounds. Is he going to be good? Is he going to be bad? What the hell is he going to be? I don't, give him another try, right? It can't hurt. You can sort of write off what happened.

But it wasn't like a confidence-inspiring performance. I can tell you that. So I think he probably keeps going, but who knows on what level. From Miguelibarra39, With many light heavyweights being unsuccessful at heavyweight recently, Gus, Volante, OSP, does this discourage an eventual move up for Jon Jones? So I had thought that the opposite, if it happened,

I thought if Gus had gone up and done well, that Jon would have been like, wait a second, you got DC who went up there and became a champ champ, and now you got Gus going up there and he's kicking ass. Again, assuming that had happened. Was Jon really going to look around and be like, wow, these guys having success does nothing to motivate me. I didn't believe that. And yet, now the opposite has mostly happened, DC notwithstanding.

Wouldn't that equally discourage him? It certainly doesn't move the needle for him. If DC winning in the way that he did didn't move the needle for him and now everyone else losing is the compliment to DC's effort, it's not going to push him any further along. Certainly, does it discourage

him? Does he think his chances are even worse? I think as long as he thinks DC was a champion, I can be a champion, probably still holds. He probably still likes his chances. What I was hoping was that Gus would go and win. Not that I had anything against Verdun, but I was hoping Gus would go and win. And then that would pull Jon Jones out of his sabbatical, but it wasn't to be. From Paul M. Cuomo, what's more problematic,

Dan Hardy breaking his professional conduct for someone he personally knows and likes? I think he's overseen training rooms with Jai. Might be wrong on that. Or that Herb Dean sees a man go completely stiff for a period of seconds and doesn't think it's a bad stoppage. Okay. Let's get to this, shall we? To me, this is honestly one of the biggest stories coming out of the weekend. Okay. What do we want to say about this? Here's the first thing I would like to say that I think really... I don't think you can go any further in this conversation without acknowledging this.

Every time somebody in MMA, usually a fighter, sometimes a former fighter turned commentator, says something really bad about an officiant, there's a common refrain from everybody else. And the refrain is that it was unprofessional. Let me give you an example. Flashback to Florida. Dom Cruz doesn't like the stoppage from Keith Peterson and said the guy smelled like cigarettes and alcohol. Now, is that true? Probably not. I mean, Dom's probably just very upset.

I don't know. I can't say for certain, but okay. What did you notice from people at the time in condemning Dom Cruz? That's a really unfair character assassination, and he shouldn't say things like that. I understand that. I'm not here to defend Dominic Cruz saying,

Keith Peterson smells like cigarettes and booze. I'm not here to defend Dan Hardy taking time out of the broadcast to yell. Because if you guys saw what he had said later, per Dean on Instagram, when you have a sort of a small arena like this, where there are essentially no fans and you hear stop the fight, it can be confusing and somewhat of an issue

because it could be someone's corner yelling that or the doctor and he doesn't know in real time who's yelling it. Now it appears to not have an effect because he didn't act on it, but still, that's a fair concern. I don't think there's any problem with that. I'm not defending Dominic Cruz's actions there per se.

I am not defending Dan Hardy's actions on Saturday night per se. Here's what I am going to say as a conversation starter to all of this. If commissions want less of this kind of thing, right? If they want scenarios where referees or other officiants, judges, or whoever don't get dragged through the mud, perhaps quite unfairly, maybe not so much in this situation, but others, then you have to stop shielding yourselves from every single form

of accountability and public scrutiny. If you are a fighter and you believe you have been done wrong by the referee, what recourse do you have? The answer is basically none. Because most commissions have rigged the rules to say where, you know, it's almost like those stupid-ass laws that allow people to pull guns and murder their own neighbors. Did you feel threatened? I mean, whether or not the situation was actually threatening is irrelevant. How did you feel? They do the same thing to the referees.

Well, did you feel like you were acting in the fighter's best interest? How did you think that he was going out? Whether or not that the occupational competency is in play here or not is irrelevant. And so you have no recourse. If you are a fighter, you get no recourse with UFC other than whatever leverage in the marketplace you can pull together, which is very little.

You have no say over sponsors. Maybe the media is not fair to you. And you have absolutely no ability to control your destiny with the commission other than to genuflect before them. Ladies and gentlemen, if people lash out at commissions who have spent the entirety of their existence not making themselves accountable to the public, not making themselves available for transparency.

You just had, this past week before, Nevada no longer disclosing any kind of purse information for MMA or boxing, which do you think for a fucking second has anything to do with serving the fighter's interests? Dude, they get screwed every which way and and in particular by the commissions where they can try to ban you for life if you're nick diaz smoking weed only the public pressure brings it down to like this exorbitant uh uh sentence where it was five years right and then even further public scrutiny uh was the only thing that saved you was outrage. If you're Nick Diaz, the only thing that saved you was outrage. Well, no wonder people resort to outrage. It doesn't mean it's right.

It doesn't mean you can be like, yeah, so outrage is certainly a valid mechanism by which we can just let things happen. You can't just allow people to do those kinds of things. But hello, ladies and gentlemen, this is not a hard problem to diagnose. Herb Dean took the time to go to Instagram and explain himself. And whether you like it or not, he at least had the willingness to do that.

But he didn't have to do that. And most don't. And you think these, and this is, by the way, there's no commission in this particular case since they're self-regulating. but you think Nevada is going to do anything? If you believe Herb Dean to be in the wrong, you think they're going to do anything to censure him, re-evaluate his training, right? No, they're not going to do shit. They're not going to do anything. These commissions have absolutely rigged the system in such a way as to never be accountable for failure, never be accountable for questioning, never be accountable for transparency.

And so people, after years and years and years and years of dealing with this, some of them fighters, some of them managers, some of them trainers, some of them former fighters turned coaches, some of them just observers, the only recourse left to you is lashing out. That's it. What else can you do? There's no official mechanism by which you can go and lobby your concerns, or you can show up to a meeting and at the end in Nevada, you can say what you a meeting and at the end in Nevada you can say what you want. They're going to tell you to go fuck yourself. They don't care. They're not going to listen to you.

You don't matter to them. This is it. This is the only way people have to affect change. It should not be this way. It should not be a system by where your only means of getting any kind of productive development around a problem is to be unprofessional. And yet that is exactly what we have.

So if you want to say Dan Hardy acted out in a way that was irresponsible, I won't fight you on it. I will not fight you. If you want to say Dominic Cruz should not be assassinating someone's character like that just because he didn't like the decision, I will not fight you on it because I can't defend them in and of themselves. But you had better take a long look at the system here and recognize that if you want to blame these actors, you better look around and realize they are only responding to the incentives laid out in front of them, which is they have no other way of effecting change. Oh, it's not Dan Hardy's responsibility to say anything. Yeah, maybe it's not. Maybe it's not.

But who else is going to say something? Right? This is a self-regulated thing. You think Mark Ratner is going to go in there and give him a piece of his mind? Mark Ratner is one of the nicest guys on earth, and I think really believes in the competency of the people that they hired. You think, again, I'm not suggesting to you that I, I'm not weighing in on Herb's choice here,

because I think there's something that really is involved here. You think that there are any professional consequences to this? None. None. This will just keep happening. The only thing that commissions respond to is public scandal that is it that is it and if you don't want it to be that way because you don't think it's appropriate for these other actors in the space to be saying the things that they're saying fine which you better be advocating for on the other end, is a mechanism by which these things can be addressed.

Because so long as your argument is, well, they shouldn't be doing that, you are only addressing half the problem, and you are not diagnosing where these symptoms come from. They come from the fact that fighters get fucked six ways to Sunday by every power broker in this sport. That is just a fact. That is a fact. That is an absolute fact that is not up for debate. Anybody who has power in this industry uses it

to fuck fighters. So the sooner you just burn that into your consciousness and understand that. The easier all this becomes to diagnose as a problem. Now, what do we make? Here, I'll go to the next question and I'll use this one. Actually, 15 was PD World 99. Just how much has Herb Dean fallen from grace? I don't know how to answer that question for you. I see a lot of people say, well, Herb Dean's fallen off and it's been real bad. And yes, I can point to a couple of these stoppages that have been not great.

I did not like the one over the weekend. And I did not like the one, the C.B. Dalloway one against the Russian guy, I forget. It was a similar situation. It was Paul Felder and Dan Hardy screaming at Herb Dean to stop the fight. And then you had C.B. Dalloway come out afterwards and be like, you know, that dude, I don't know what he's doing. On the other hand, you should know that there's been times where I have questioned some of Herb's stoppages.

He's called me personally to explain them, and I got a better understanding afterwards. Number one. Number two, when we say a referee has now fallen from grace, right? So we are saying that there was good performance or at least a high stature and that we are now at a lower place. By what measurement are we using? I'm not here to say that it's not a correct argument.

What I mean to say is I put out a tweet over the weekend. I was like, you know, if you were sort of in control of all of this and you had a way to assess referee performance and make a call about it, what are the specific mechanisms and criteria you would change or put in place or whatever to make a call? Here's what I'm saying. How many calls are too bad to the point where you have to then remove somebody or demote

them? Do we have a number? What are we looking for? What kind of, how bad do they have to be? Do they have to intervene too early, intervene too late, a little bit of both? What you end up finding is that, again, the commissions just have latitude. They just kind of wait until enough happens, usually through public scandal. In the case of Steve Mazzagati, the number one promoter in the sport, sort of railing

against him was enough over time to get them to bend. But the point being is they just have the latitude to say whenever they feel like it's been enough. We don't have, to my understanding, any kind of formal review process related to the accumulation of individual incidents that let us know some kind of further review was warranted and that review should result in either sanction or re-education or no fault, whatever the various things can come from that.

There is, as again, no formal process by which to decide this. So when people say, oh, he's had a bunch of these, my response is, okay, maybe he has. How many is he supposed to have before we're concerned and i'm not saying he's had too many or too little this would go for any referee what is the process by which you decide performance has declined what is the process by which you do something about it to my knowledge there is none there might be some internal reviews but there is nothing in terms of the public can look at as a grading system, as some kind of scoring for occupational competency that they can review. There's just

what the commission wants to do. And then at least the other one here from pack underscore attack 55, did you watch Herb's post on Instagram? And if so, he makes valid points on why it gets tricky when someone yells, stop the fight, if it's not the sports physician or corner your thoughts. I thought that was a very perfectly reasonable response to the critique.

The part about this that I don't understand, here's where I'm at on this one. I don't think Herb's a bad guy. That's not the same to say, you know, lots of people aren't bad guys who should not be referees. But okay,

hold on a second here. Let's break this down piece by piece. If you watch Herb's video, he makes a point there about like, anybody just yelling, stop the fight, is not helpful in a situation like this. Fair point.

I don't know how you can really argue with that. The other point that he makes though, is that he was there above Herbert looking down, and he could see Herbert was making judgments about how to respond to the various threats from Trinaldo. That part I don't understand. He gets dropped and falls like a mannequin with a left hand. Boom. Head hits the canvas. He kind of, like, I'm not going to say he seizures.

That's not quite right. But he kind of gets to this sort of like naturally defensive position. And then Trinaldo walks over and looks down at him, fist in the air, ready to throw. And Herbert doesn't move. Herbert didn't push off the legs. Herbert didn't roll to turtle. Herbert didn't try and go for a takedown. He just didn't move.

And then you'll notice Trinaldo drills him and eventually just holds his hand and hits him a couple more times. It's like, I don't buy that he was all there. The question you have to ask yourself is, did it look like if you are literally on top of Herbert looking down, did it look like from that vantage point that Herbert was there? And the answer is we don't really know. We're not in that, we can't replicate what Dean sees. I think it's partly why they should have like arresting officers.

They should have body cams or ref cams of some kind. I want to get a closer look at what he saw. And even that won't always help you, but I bet you it gets you a lot closer. So to me, it's like if someone comes over and holds a fist like this and they don't scramble or move or do anything, the first shot goes in unobstructed

right through your hands like it would be one thing if you just didn't move and then the shot comes in and then you didn't you know pull your hands closer to your face or roll or squint he doesn't he just he just eats it and then trinaldo grabs one hand and then fires the rest from the left no resistance i i don't know. It's hard for me to believe that he was all there. Did he look all there from Herb's vantage point is simply an unknowable to this point. But that's where I come down. It's like, I've never seen a fighter do that. If you get threatened like this, they take action. And if you're not controlling their body, no one's controlling his hips. no one's controlling his hips,

no one's controlling his shoulders. That's what knee on belly is. You're controlling their hips. That's what cross-facing is. You're controlling their head and neck. No control whatsoever. None. Just standing over him.

First shot, unobstructed. I have a very difficult time believing he was all there. By the way, this came a little bit earlier. This comes to us from YouTube. From Paul0132. Do you feel that the event time had an effect on the judging and officiating? If it had an effect on the fighting

and it had an effect on the commentating, which I think that it did, how does it not have an effect elsewhere? Maybe not so pronounced an effect that the wrong person won or something. The question is how much of an effect, but do I think it had one? There's just no doubt in my mind. There's no doubt in my mind it had one. Also from YouTube, from David Johnson. Has Fight Island been a subtle way for the UFC to usher in the next generation without being overshadowed by the current elite and who

of the new breed has impressed you most? We'll get to that in just a second. Obviously, Hamzat Shamaya was the guy who was the big standout from that. Going back to Instagram here at Sting Ray. At this point, why aren't the broadcast team in a soundproof booth somewhere on site instead of cage side it's clear the fighters can hear them and if the potential

to influence a fight is present why not remove it um it feels like if you're gonna have them off site why are they traveling to abu dhabi to begin with? Like, if you guys watch BN Sport, you know, I watch, obviously, I watch a lot of La Liga. I watch Real Madrid. You know, Ray Hudson and Phil Shane are not at the Bernabeu or, you know, La Fabrica. They're in Miami. They're in the studios there. They're just calling the fights from there. Which is, you know, I think HDNet did that think like HD net did that for year and Oka.

Remember that when fade or fought Hong man, Choi. So what happens? Um, I, I think they would just rather than be there. You know, you'd rather have commentators who can react to what they hear and see and

feel inside the arena from, uh, Jonah Griff underscore Dan Hardy, verbally confronting herb dean mid-broadcast was very reminiscent of luke and brian criticizing jay for his actions during the show so is jay like the herb dean of morning combat jay are you the kind of guy that's going to get other production people killed on the show uh only behind the scenes. Herb Dean also has like 150 pounds on me so I don't know. Yeah I don't know how much I like that analogy either. No Jay is more like Herb Dean. I don't know I'm not sure who Jay is. I

have to think about that a little bit more. I bet Brian has a better answer for that. Alright let's go to red, white, and blue. Luke, biggest concerns with Fight Island. Referee judging, no commission, or COVID safety? COVID safety, God, you guys see what's happening with Major League Baseball? What a fucking nightmare that is. Season is not even a week old. Not even.

Started on Thursday. Nats, Yankees, home opener. And it's already, they had to cancel games, and two teams absolutely filled to the brim with COVID. What a nightmare. I mean, here's what we're learning now, I think. If you do what promoters are doing in combat sports, so UFC, top rank, Bellator,

obviously some of the various properties, PBC working with Showtime, right? Or you do what NBA is doing, which is that on a larger scale, which is a bubble. If you do a bubble, you might have a chance because that's a lot to manage, but it looks like it can be done.

Now, the NBA season hasn't started until July 30th, so we've got three more days, but you're at least on your way at that point, right? And I know we had the dude going to the... My man had to go see some titties. Who was the guy, Jay, that went to the strip club? He went to the Gentleman's Club. What was his name?

It wasn't Patrick Beverly, was it? It was somebody else. I forget the guy's name. Who was it? Do you remember? I'll get it for you. Hang on. Okay.

He had to go. Now now but the thing is they caught him who is it lou williams lou williams that's right so they made him quarantine now for 10 days look at what nhl is doing nhl has two cities uh that they're doing like hub activities from and both are in canada which hello is a country that's done a much better job you've got to put things in a bubble it appears otherwise. Otherwise, this is not controllable. So I don't know what they're going to do with NFL football. Because by the way, you can say what you want about NBA contracts. Maybe this works or it doesn't, but they're guaranteed.

Most of your football contracts are not guaranteed. So you don't play, you don't get paid. I don't know what they're going to do. I really don't know what they're going to do. But the biggest concerns with Fight Island. Referee, judging, commission, no commission, COVID safety. Probably the judging. All right, DB underscore Scott underscore Outlaw. Shogun has won five of his past seven fights. Now talking about retiring, even though he wouldn't be going out on top, if he hung up the gloves today,

his exit would be more graceful than many of his peers from that era, right? Yes, he still is winning, but God, did y'all not look at that and just think? I mean, here's the problem with everyone's argument about Shogun. They're always like, dude, Shogun looks so good. Or rather, not so much that rather. That's not quite true. But what they'll say is this.

He keeps winning. Are you under the impression that we should give a fuck? The argument is not that he is winning or he is losing. Yes, sometimes it becomes so bad that they can't win for shit and then you really have to intervene like a BJ Penn. The issue is, and I suspect as brain trauma studies develop and we can get a keener sense of it while someone is alive, I mean, how do you go around thinking that Shogun hasn't taken too

much brain damage? I mean, just go and look through his career. Forget all the gym wars. I mean, this guy trained in a gym that was known for its gym wars back in Cuba, Brazil. Shoot the box. Okay? He has probably taken an extraordinary amount of trauma to his brain. Lil Nog too. I don't know how you can look at that and think otherwise. So to me, it's like, okay, can he win despite that?

Yeah, it seems like he can. Is it a good idea to keep going? Probably not. I love this question from Colin Cunningham. What do you want to see next from Hamzat or Kamzat Chemaev? I see a lot of people suggesting ranked opponents, but after just two UFC fights, do you think it's justified that he gets one next? No, not necessarily. Although if you did at the very end, like 14 or 15, I mean, no one more so than that. Here's why I'm not even saying he can't beat them. That's not the argument.

If you want to, you can go and look up neither, uh, excuse me, either all or at a bare minimum, most, I did it yesterday. Most of Hamzat Shemaev's fights before he got to the UFC. Most of them, I think, if not all of them, are in Brave. And you can watch his development. So I watched his fight, I watched his third, fourth, fifth, and sixth fights. And you can see how he's getting better. One, you can see how the comparisons to Khabib

are a little bit overstated. One, I think he has much more power on the feet than Khabib. Much more. He's dropped multiple opponents with his punches, and he seems to do it effortlessly. That's the first. Second thing I'd say is he doesn't have as wide array, a number of takedowns as Khabib.

He's a little more limited in that regard. In that sense, he's a little bit like Zabit. He likes the body lock. But he's also a little bit different in that regard. In that sense, he's a little bit like Zabit. He likes the body lock, but he's also a little bit different that he is an aggressive passer and has most of his damage comes from, he doesn't mind seeking, you know, mounts a bit of a lost art. He's bringing it back, which I really like to see. He likes to lay his opponents flat rather than wrestle with them as they get to base. He'll do that, but that's not really the way he goes. So he's got a lot of subtle but important differences from Khabib.

But the thing that stands out to me is he's just go, go, go, go, go all the time. And that's the kind of thing that you get a little bit confused about if you watch someone go from regional MMA. What am I confused about? That kind of style is tailor-made to look good on your way to the UFC. And he clearly has the ability, two fights in, to compete at this level. Please make no mistake, he looks like he might be the genuine article. But here's just a rule you need to accept in your life about MMA. Eventually, someone is

going to find a way to stop the way you win. Now, you may still end up winning the fight, but they're going to take away all of those pieces from you. Eventually, someone's going to rock you. Eventually, someone is going to put it on you. And how do you react then? And so, why I bring that up is, he's got this style where he's just like, go right across the octagon, tear into people, barely use any kind of setups, and then from there get going. And once he gets going, obviously he's pretty formidable.

But eventually someone's going to stop that, and eventually someone's going to hit him. What he needs is the reality check that happens when you get enough proper development that you can't fight every fight pedal to the floor. There are times in a fight where you need to fight pedal to the floor. There are times in a fight where you need to go pedal to the floor. There are sequences in a fight where you need to go pedal to the floor. So keeping that instinct alive is the right call. But to me, he has fought in a way that tells you he has only fought opposition,

that he is just totally overmatched. And that is the great part about getting experience on the regional scene is that it usually irons out a lot of problems. But the truth is, the regional scene, if you have a lot of success and you're clearly an A-plus athlete like him, is that it can actually foster some of these things too. Where,

oh, I can just run across the octagon and throw a huge off-balance punch. And even if I miss, I can just dive for someone's ankles and throw a huge off-balance punch. And even if I miss, I can just dive for someone's ankles and get a takedown. Yeah, because that works on that level. Eventually, that's not going to work on this level. And at that point, you don't want that reality check to set in later. To me, he's still, it's going to sound like I'm crazy when I say he's green.

He's a little green still. He's a little bit green in some of his approach. Now, in saying all of this, the dissect that's going to hopefully come out later today is going to be on him because he is clearly quite special. But the reason why I don't want him to fight someone ranked yet is I think he probably could beat ranked fighters already. I don't want him to rush that way.

I want him to get a little bit more development, have people push him a little bit. He's never even seen the third round. Someone is going to force him to see the third, maybe fourth and fifth rounds. And then the style of just dramatic, pedal to the metal kind of fighting, it will backfire a little bit if you do that.

So that's why I want, take your time a little bit, getting him more experience, I'm fine with. Slowly up the ante. It's not that he can't proceed. For his own sake, let's slow it just a little bit to see him make the adjustments so that by the time he's in that top five space, and there's no going back at that point unless you just keep losing, he's ready to make the proper adjustments for that kind of talent level. All right. From Unpredictable Rhythm.

Did Carla really win that fight? Yes. Em Rodriguez looked amazing. Wish she'd have used more of her knees. She did. But when that fight was over, people... Okay, I think there was a couple of 30-27s. And maybe I didn't agree with those.

I didn't see what the big deal was about that fight. I thought she quite clearly had won. And then last but not least, from Scott McCreight, do you think if the Pettis-Bendez fight would have gone five rounds, the result would have been different? Different in the sense that Pettis may have gotten a stoppage. Bendez was just overmatched. Pettis looks great, dude.

He's a young kid. He's 26. 26, he's got all that experience. He's not a devastating finisher, but he's got a really well-rounded skill set. He's made some mistakes that he's had to pay for. He's had some successes. He's been able to propel himself.

He's only 26 years old. Look out, man. He is a future title contender. I think by definition, he's a future title contender because I think he gets the winner of the next matchup. But he's talented. He's super talented. All right, so let's go to YouTube here. YouTube questions, leave them in the chat. People have been pulling them out. Let's go to those exclusively here. Free reign, whatever you want to get to. You want to take a dump on

BC, we can do that. You can ask about something we missed in all of this, we can get to that too. While they're pulling up the questions here, and you can fire them in in the back there if you want whenever you're ready. I would say I wanted to grade Fight Island and grade

the Bellator's first effort. By the way, no one asked about Pico. Maybe we'll get to that a little bit later. I thought Pico looked great. People are like, oh, Pico crushed a can. Good. Good. It's called experience. It's called maybe something of a tune-up fight. The dude's development has been all wrong from the word go so uh why would we exacerbate it by giving him somebody ranked and what you saw was uh patience execution control positions and then from the control positions then the offense opened up which forced bad reactions and then ultimately he got the submission that's the key that's what you're looking for. So did he do it on overmatched opposition?

Yes, of course he did. Is that a bad thing? No. No, it's not. It's a great thing. He needs more experience. All right. From YouTube, JTivo asks,

Do you think the lack of fans slash crowds is having a positive impact on debuting fighters? Less pressure without the fans. Well, as it relates to Chemayev, I doubt that that dude feels a whole lot of pressure one way or the other. So for him, no. But for the other ones, probably.

You still feel a little bit different because you see the big names around you. All the cameras are there. So you can tell it's a much bigger production. It's a much bigger show. You're in Las Vegas or you're in Abu names around you. All the cameras are there. So you can tell it's a much bigger production. It's a much bigger show. You're in Las Vegas or you're in Abu Dhabi. I mean, that has to kind of weigh on your mind a little bit here. But probably, yeah, probably the degree to which there's less atmospheric swaying down

upon you, it must buoy your performance. I would only imagine that it would. From Nathan Labe, what the hell do we do with Pico? In terms of who he fights next, I don't know. And you can't give him next what you just gave him. That would be overkill. But somebody who is not quite a threat, who is a little bit more than what we got the last time, is the way to go. And this is not designed so that we can do the Michael Venn and Page thing, because the Michael Venn and Page thing to me is different. Michael Venn and Page has had his opportunities to develop more readily,

and he's had the big fights. They did not go his way. Not all of them, but certainly the Douglas Lima one didn't go his way. And even though he won the Semtex one, then he just goes back to fighting lesser opposition. That's not what I'm advocating. What I'm advocating is somebody to get enough reps where, in this case, he got one more walkout, one more travel. He got one more camp.

He got one more go-round with Jackson Wink. He got to execute without much resistance the kind of things that he needed to do. He needs one more level up from that and to do that again. And why am I giving this guy, which you might consider to be special treatment? Well, yeah, dude, some guys are worth more special treatment than others. MMA fans have been inculcated with this UFC style of development, which is either you're ready or you're not. And that works for some. For some, that is all you need.

For a lot of fighters, that is not what is good for them. They need something a little bit more hands-on, especially when they had improper development to begin with, where they were way rushing this guy way too fast. It was just not the right way to do that. So now we can take a step back. We can look around, and we can say, is there a better way to do that. So now we can take a step back. We can look around and we can say, is there a better way to do this this time? Because you get this one wrong

and then there is no going back. This is basically your last chance to get it right with Pico. After this, it's a wrap. So I leave that capable question up to Rich Chow over at Bellator. He can figure it out. But do not rush this kid again because you do do it one more time, and it's over for you.

From Alex Alberto G., how would Kamaru fight Chimaev? My hunch is, there was a guy that Chimaev fought. Let me give you his name. Actually, you should go look this up. I tweeted about it yesterday. This is why he is a little bit not like Khabib. It's a little bit more than that. So two fights before his UFC debut, he fought a guy by the name of Ikram Aleskerov. Now, I'd not heard of him either, but Ikram Aleskeroov is apparently a Sambo world champion. I think he's a master of sport

in Russia at it. He stuffed all of Tremea's takedowns. Tremea didn't get close. I mean, there was a couple times where he had a good trip, but it didn't work. And Aleskarov just absolutely stuffed all of them. If that guy can stuff them,

Usman can stuff them, to be quite clear. He's much bigger and he's much stronger. And also, what we know is that a guy like Kumar Usman can slow a fight down, wear on you, drain you. He's hard to take down, hard to hold down, hard to hurt. The way that Chimaev won was that he fainted and got a reaction and then the head of El Eskarov dipped and he uppercutted him and knocked him out with one punch. So he obviously has heavy hands.

But if you can, I'm telling you I don't know exactly how Chimeev's going to look if the fight goes to the fourth or fifth rounds or if all of his takedowns are stuffed and he gets tired. But I've just seen this kind of movie before where a guy comes out of the regional scene

filled with all the talent in the world, and this guy is absolutely special. Make no mistake about it. But I want to see him have a more measured approach, and I want to see the rest of his skills come to life. Because what if he can't take Kamaru down? Well, now you've got to strike with him, and maybe you've got heavy hands,

but Kamaru's got heavy hands too and a hell of a chin, and he can maybe take you down, and then wear on on top and then control you. And then what's the point of that? So again, let's not fast forward his development. Take his time. From Liam O'Brien, how would you grade on paper Bellator's next card in August? First of all, I saw people giving Bellator's card on Friday night, like a B and a C. I think a B is a fairer score than a C. It wasn't that the card was all that great. The J.J. Wilson fight was cool, I guess, over Tywon Claxton. Pico got a nice win. Sergio Pettis looked good. But it was a very modest effort from Bellator. I think it was modest on purpose. I don't think they were going out there being like, alright, when UFC came back

they wanted to do UFC 249 big show. Bellator had a completely different strategy, which is, let's just get one under our belt, let's see how it goes, let's learn from it, and then we'll adjust accordingly. Either one has its pluses or minuses. One makes a bigger splash up front, obviously.

But I don't mind that this one went the way that it did and for what they were trying like a bit of a pilot program i thought it went off pretty well the only major criticism i would have is the pacing was was dreadful i like the desk with chale and with um what's his face from the nfl i forget um um what's his face, Jay? Jay Glazer. Jay Glazer. Jay Glazer.

It's fine. But between every fight, it just slows it down in the most painful way. I don't know that we need that. But other than that, I thought it was a pretty great effort. It looked really good on TV. They had new camera angles. That looked awesome. So I love that. As far as the next card let's go here let's judge

that one that one's a lot better this is the uh august 7th hendo and chandler rematch so uh that will be august 7th bellator 243 they've got uh curtis millender millender taking on sabaho masi two former UFC fighters. Matt Mitrione, taken on Timothy Johnson. And to this point, Michael Chandler and Benson Henderson. Yeah, it's a lot better. I mean, we gotta fill it out a little bit, but even with that, it's a lot better.

I give that one a B+, something like that. Alright, from Paulo Diego Abadilla. Abadija. What are the chances of DC Stipe 3 being a sad and slow old man fight instead of this epic conclusion that is being marketed as low?

Low. No. To be sad, it has to be both dudes. And even if you think one of them is over it, the other one won't be. I guarantee it. I just don't buy that that would be sad and old. As good as the first two? First one was kind of short. As good as the second one? I don't

know. Maybe more conservative. Maybe more wrestling. Maybe more boring. Now that's possible. But you know, sad? I don't think sad is what I'm expecting. From Enda Hart, is it fair to say that Darren Till hasn't won a fight since Cowboy back in 2017?

No, it's not really fair. I thought he won the fight with Gastelum. I thought it was close, but I thought he won it. This one he didn't win, and obviously he had a couple of setbacks at Welterweight I think that's a little bit, I think that's a little much certainly though you know, having a bit of a come to earth

moment is probably going to be better for him, again maybe his development got rushed too and he's only now getting better and at 27 years old again, everyone's going to develop a little bit differently but the one problem with UFC and MMA in general is people get rushed so much, in part because you got this guy Chumaev comes out and he's just like I mean

he's just bulldozing these guys out of Europe okay but let's not rush him let's give him some time or you have guys who like you know Max Roshkoff who are coming off like killing everybody in the gym and then they're not ready for you know somebody who's got triple the amount of pro fights or somebody who's come out and they just need to take the fight because regional MMA has dropped off a cliff and they're broke. There's all kinds of reasons that people rush, but we've got to learn to take our time. And that drives people crazy because now they're finally doing it with Pico.

But in the end, that is not a guarantee you will get the Pico that we were promised. I want to be clear about this, but here's what I do know for sure. If you don't do it, there's no way you'll ever find out. So just because you do these things doesn't mean you get the end result. But if you don't do them, 100% guaranteed you won't. So it's just a necessary condition. It's not sufficient, but it's a necessary condition to get somewhere. Catastrophic Ending asks, Luke, do broadcast announcers need to have monitors instead of just seeing through the cage? Nobody mentioned Whitaker shaking out his right hand three times, and Hardy seemed wrong about late stoppage. I would say you do want to have the monitor.

If you've ever sat cage side, and I bring this up all the time on my personal live chat, I've said it here, it's one of these things where I can tell you until I'm blue in the face. Until you experience it, you just can't. It sounds crazy. I've had the benefit of calling fights pro and amateur right up on the ring or the cage. I've done both benefit of calling fights pro and amateur right up on the ring or

the cage. I've done both. They don't look the same. Sometimes they look the same, but a lot of times they don't look the same on the monitor. Sometimes it really benefits you to look at the monitor. It's why Dana White does it because he wants to see what are the fans at home seeing. I want to make sure that my experience matches theirs. That's the key there. Am I getting a bit of a different look? It's why you give judges monitors. Because let's say I'm sitting at this position on the cage,

but the fight is on 30-foot cage, let's say, all the way on the other side, and it's a ground battle, and their backs are to me. So I can't really tell what's going on. At that point, I absolutely need the monitor to do what I'm doing. I need the monitor to help me figure out what's happening here. Maybe not at all times for all scenarios, but for some pretty critical ones, especially if it's a close fight, I need it there. So there's a lot of value to having it there. If it's underused or poorly used, that's a fair criticism, but I wouldn't want to take it

away. From Scott Brown, with Miami Marlins the first team to have mass positives, does the NBA regret their bubble in Florida? I think it's the exact opposite. I think it's the exact opposite. I don't know if what the NBA is going to be doing will be successful. And they picked a pretty terrible place in terms of the outbreak to have a bubble. But if you can maintain the bubble, it seems like that's your path to success. What does the UFC do? Let's forget about Fight Island for just a second

because that's a good example of it. But just think about the Apex. Don't even think about international travel, passports, none of that stuff. I guess some people have to travel internationally to get to the Apex facility like Dan Hooker. But let's just imagine a bunch of US-based fighters traveling to Las Vegas.

What's the benefit there? Right? You get there on Tuesday. You're gone Sunday morning. You have at any one time a few hundred people. Like it's a short window of time you have to control people and it's relatively speaking not a huge number. And then they're gone, and then the process repeats itself.

So you can get the screens refined at every stage. When do we get the testing? When do we get the results? How do we make sure that we have proper quarantining and travel processes and blah, blah, blah? How do we do all that? You can get that process down like clockwork over time. And I suspect at Fight Island by the fourth event and then now by UFC Apex, they've gotten that. Because it's not, don't get me wrong, it's an incredibly difficult, expensive challenge. But if all you have to do, and it sounds like saying all,

but just hear me out, is Tuesday to Saturday with let's say 300 to 400 people, and then the process starts over again. That is doable. You can repeat that. But if you're doing what Major League Baseball is doing, which is, oh, is the game over? Just go back home.

It's a nightmare. You think this is, unless they change procedure, this is the only way that, that this is the only team that's going to get this? This is the only team that's going to get this? This is going to happen over and over and over and over again. And how are you going to do college sports, college dorms? How are you going to do NFL football,

which in terms of personnel is what, twice the size of these teams, three times the size of these teams? It's just, I don't know how you do it. The bubble in Florida may be a bad idea by virtue of being Florida. And maybe the bubble, which they have to keep around for two months, is too much to do. We shall see. But the bubble idea, I think, is the one that is doable. All right. If you guys want questions, get them in on YouTube now. We'll do a few more of these. Just leave them in YouTube. They're being screened. We'll do two or three more of these, and then we'll call it a day. From Casey Kinnaman, outside of Kamzat, who were your big

winners from Fight Island? I thought that Calvin Cater was a big winner. Figueredo has to be one. Got to count Figueredo as one. Obviously, Peter Yan is a big one. I thought Aljamain Sterling would have been by virtue of not competing there per se, but being next in line, but that's a weird one. Who are some other ones here? Let me pull this up very quickly if i can

i would say my answer would be uh we go to let's see from usman and masvidal i would say rose would be a big one right i'd add her in. I'm going to add in Jimmy Rivera. Jared Gordon is a big one for me. Munir Lazez, a big one for me. I'm going to add in Askar Askarov. Shouts to BC. I'd add in Rafael Fizaev.

God, he looked like a beast. Jack Ramanson looked good. Grant Dawson is not getting a lot of talk, but I thought he looked really good. Armin Saryukian, amazing. Obviously, I mentioned Deveson Figueredo. And from the last card, I'd say, you know who looked pretty good?

Panny Keonzad looked pretty good. Paul Craig. Oh, they all buried you out here,anny Keonzad looked pretty good. Paul Craig. The old bear Jew out here still submitting people from his guard. Amazing. Verdum. And, you know, Whitaker getting back on the winning track is a big deal. And then, you know, Trinaldo. The sad part is everyone's talking about the stoppage,

but he actually looked pretty good because he had a tough fight. He had sort of like come back through it there, and it was back and forth, and he got a nice win. All right. from Braveheart asks, Luke, do you think by Khabib ruling himself out until later in the year, UFC will make Justin versus McGregor

in the meantime? I don't know, man. Did you guys see that video of McGregor on the beach somewhere with some orderly bringing him drinks and he's up there lighting up a spliff? You know, I don't know, man. I don't know where his head is out on that one that would be like the natural order of things that you would go to if that was something that they could reasonably rely upon but connor's his own man i don't know your inclination to target that is correct. Like, what else would they do?

And by the way, wouldn't that be great? Totally fair. But where McGregor is in his mind, your guess is as good as mine. All right, we'll do two more. From Something Funny, who will look more foolish, Tyson or Jones Jr.? God, the people in charge of the Jake Paul and Nate Robinson and uh nate robson fight hit me up and asked if i wanted an interview i was like no no i don't um who will look more foolish probably tyson so here's what's going to happen i think either

tyson like looks really good early either knocks him out or lands some big shots because it's an exhibition. Or he sort of just can't ever get going and Jones Jr. figures out a way to just sort of piece him up through the course of the whole thing. And then late it gets kind of sad. All right, last but not least ellis grant the third says or asks figueredo versus garbrandt who takes it so i'm assuming you mean at 125 which garbrandt says he can still make i'm gonna still say figueredo uh between all the different things he can do i just don't know how garbrandt's gonna look at 125 you know both guys would have to cut a bunch of weight including figuered obviously, but he's the existing champ.

I'm going to assume that Figueredo has enough power punching and the rest of his game. His ground game is nasty. I'll go with him. Alright, folks. Thank you so much for giving us a trial run here. If you liked it, and I hope you did. Again, not a thing we'll do

normally, but just kicking the tires on the idea in the event that one of us goes on vacation, which I will eventually go probably next month or the month after at some point. Give the video a thumbs up. Subscribe to the channel. There is a Dissected coming. If you've got any questions for me,

lukethomasnews.gmail.com. Plus you can see below here on the screen all of the different ways you can follow us. And don't forget about BC, folks. Shoot them a follow on Instagram or on Twitter. Obviously, you can see the ones here from Morning Combat, and there I am on Instagram and Twitter as well.

Alright, so Dissected will either be out later today or at the latest tomorrow. Yeah. Appreciate you guys tuning in. Thank you so much. And until next... Oh, yeah. By the way way hold on don't forget about showtime showtime.com free trial for 30 days if you like it you can keep it if not you can bounce uh showtime's first card is coming up i think august 1st so we are rocking and rolling folks all right thank you guys so much for watching i appreciate it until next time May all of your gains be loyal.