DDP Hurt, Title Fight With Khamzat On Hold UFC 317 | Jake Paul Fight Announcement | Morning Kombat - MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Reveal.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Reveally, look at us now tempted.

Speaker 1 (00:13):
Jesus, Oh.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Us doing what we long.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
For.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
It's time to bank. Oh yeah, goodness, gracious ass is bodacious. Hey,
we're back for vacation. It's Morning Combat. We are here
to party, we are here to bang. Monday, April twenty first,
two thousand and twenty five. I'm the co hostess with

(00:52):
the most as your boy, with that BBC, with that
bde Brian Campbell, that is Luke Thomas from the Nation's Capital.
We have a hell of a show for you today,
live and direct from Metal Arts Studios here in the
n y C. Thank you to everybody listening in your
ear hole, watching on YouTube, or maybe watching on the
DraftKings Network. And a reminder that today's episode of Morning

(01:14):
Combat is brought to you by DraftKings and with DraftKings,
the crown is yours, LT. Fresh off the bird from
the Crescent City. You're feeling refreshed, You're feeling ready to
bring it today.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
I am not feeling refreshed because I got up at
two fifty this morning.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
Oh I'm still on West Coast time. I'm meffed up
big time.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
Yeah, but uh, New Orleans is a great place. Oh wow,
it is an amazing place. How was your vacation?

Speaker 4 (01:37):
It was?

Speaker 2 (01:37):
It was really nice. San Diego is except for the
six point two earthquake that my family and I got
indoctrinated into. It was such a fit. Joshua Tree National
Park at what a time.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
Josh National Park is is a treat.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
So many of my favorite musicians have died of morphine
overdoses there. It's just such a great time, but very happy.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
I mean, if you're gonna dive a morphine overdose, it's
a beautiful play.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
I did drive through twenty nine Palms and did see
the sign for your beloved marine base?

Speaker 1 (02:06):
Am I right about that city or the city that
side of the road horror town? Yes? Yes, I couldn't
believed motherfuckers live there. I mean, and I'm not talking
to talk about the Marine Corps base, the city out
the city, the little village outside of it. Bro it's
the land that time forgot.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
It definitely is uh. I forgot about it already, But
I am fired up to come back. Do you know
what I did? Because I can't sleep because I'm on
West Coast time. Last night I watched seven consecutive morning
combat documentaries into this morning and I was reliving the
good old days. We used to be fun.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
Yeah, we used to be fat, We used to.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
Be like high on the hog lit. I mean we
had a showtime budget. We used to be a different show.
I think we could be that show again one day.
It is possible because even though we always like, well
we need studio, we need the RSD, we need the
it's true.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
Yeah, it's still just you and me. Yeah, yeah, that's
I mean, those things are nice. It's nice to have them,
but we don't need them.

Speaker 3 (02:59):
This we them.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
We do have a fantastic show for you today as
we look ahead only what sixty eight days out from
ifw UFC three seventeen, I believe it biggest card of
the summer. Who the hell's going to main event that
we're going to debate that, look at the latest news
and get into that. We got some PFL talk. We
are going to look at Jake Paul's recent announcement of
his new opponent and check out some other announcements DM.

(03:22):
Some donks have you seen this shit to follow? Finally
we're back together. But I do want to thank the
great Chuck Mintenho who filled in a week ago, admirably,
I was watching that from vacation You and him recap
UFC three sixteen Funny Games.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
It was good. It was a good episode. People note
wrote me, saying it was a much more mellow episode
like it was. We took our time, and I was like, well,
we also didn't have to do Have you seen this shit? Yeah?
Kick that part out and you.

Speaker 2 (03:46):
And have me screwing things up with shitty humor. We
do have a fantastic third member of our team. He's
the host of the main Card Minute podcast and he's
here by way of a horned up Australian man's testy sack. Hey,
it's Long Island, Luke, Nosita in the house, Lukey, how
are you?

Speaker 5 (04:02):
Bro?

Speaker 6 (04:03):
I'm good now he's horned up, though, I mean we're well.

Speaker 2 (04:05):
You wouldn't have been here if he wasn't horned like
true or false?

Speaker 7 (04:08):
Right?

Speaker 1 (04:08):
I mean your dad ejaculated in your mom and that's.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
That's no quickly, Long Island, Luke, I want to thank
you for filling in for me last week when it
was Luca Mania. It was week What a star turn
for one. No Cita here, Luke, How how is it?
How did it feel? To take my seat.

Speaker 6 (04:27):
It felt good, man, it felt right.

Speaker 2 (04:29):
It was good.

Speaker 6 (04:30):
Dennis from Submission Radio reached out, so shout out to him.

Speaker 2 (04:33):
I love that guy. Now, how bad was it having
to listen to Luke talk about toast spacers for an hour?

Speaker 1 (04:41):
For it felt like three hours? Shut the up? YouTube YouTube, boners,
you two, you gotta. I got a sausage and a helmet.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
From the Island of Bone Air. Thank you to all
of you for staying with m K always Okay always,
and we're back. We're ready to go. Shout off to
the guys in the back. How about Ken?

Speaker 8 (05:02):
Right?

Speaker 2 (05:02):
We love Ken?

Speaker 1 (05:03):
Is he sober? Love it?

Speaker 2 (05:11):
That means he's ready, That means quickly on nor Orleans, Luke,
No Orleans?

Speaker 1 (05:16):
Excuse me?

Speaker 4 (05:17):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (05:17):
Did you get some begnets for tukes?

Speaker 1 (05:20):
We did? We went to Cafe Dumont, went to the
big one, the nice one. I didn't love it, but
you know what for tell you what you take a
five year old to Cafe Dumont. Powdered sugar, Baby, It's
not just a powdered sugar. They put mountains of powdered
sugar to the point where my daughter was in her
hair to the bottom of her shoes covered in it.

Speaker 2 (05:40):
And she looks like McGregor.

Speaker 1 (05:47):
I was like, did did you win at UFC two five?

Speaker 2 (05:50):
Are you running for Irish President?

Speaker 1 (05:52):
I saw you on Tucker. No. She loved the experience
because just to have the plate of empty begnets and
there's still like mouth.

Speaker 2 (06:02):
Coffee was super superman superman like different things.

Speaker 1 (06:05):
But you know, she loved it. And then obviously we
had seen recently, uh even long before that way we
read refreshed on Princess and the Frog. Yes, and you
see like you know, uh, what's the what's the what's
the main church? The are Saint Louis Cathedral.

Speaker 2 (06:19):
I don't know the name, but I know exactly what
you're talking about yet right in Jackson Square.

Speaker 1 (06:22):
Yeah, and uh, she she was blown away, like I
saw the riverboat, every everything that she had seen in
the movie. Like obviously they did a pretty good job
representing New Orleans and it was just kind of one
of his moments where she was able to connect all
the dots. So she had a she had a brilliant time.

Speaker 2 (06:35):
Well, just this morning at Penn Station, I saw two
gentlemen without homes washing their ball bag at the sink.
Did you have any experiences like that in the in
the that city.

Speaker 1 (06:44):
No, no, I will say this. We talked about off air.
I was surprised at the number of homeless in New Orleans.
They are not hidden, it's there's a lot of them there. Yeah.
But uh, also people in New Orleans. I've noticed this
everywhere you go in the city. Nice places, bad places,
uptown places, downtown places. Dude, the amount of fried chicken

(07:05):
that's on sale in New Orleans city wide, it's insane.

Speaker 2 (07:10):
Do you want a Tony Hinchcliffe bit? What are you doing?

Speaker 1 (07:12):
No? No, no, I'm not making a racial joke, you
fucking jackass.

Speaker 2 (07:15):
I did. I did your bit on you?

Speaker 1 (07:17):
Yeah? No, no, no, I mean like just everywhere you go.
It was like I thought of where you go would
be gumbo, everywhere you go would be you know, no, brother,
they love they love Pojo frito up in that town.
Yes they do. And by the way, they make it
pretty fucking good there.

Speaker 2 (07:32):
I did love the food there in New Orleans. Love them.
Can I say this San Diego's food tope, Oh.

Speaker 1 (07:39):
Home in the San Diego in thirty plus years to
touch the heine, let me say this, I had a
bunch of cocktails because I was just trying them out. Yeah,
can I say this? Most of them were real mid,
real mid.

Speaker 2 (07:52):
Let me guess you ordered a twenty dollars cocktail, took
a half sip, said this one sucks, and ordered another
one instantly answer moved. That's your fucking moved.

Speaker 1 (07:58):
It was twenty. I don't do it. If it's ten,
I'll say this best place. I ate best place. I
I'll give a shout out Maypop. You ever ever heard
of this? No Maypop in New Orleans. I don't know
what you would call the cuisine. I guess it's typical
New Orleans cuisine. Dude. The food was fucking ridiculous. Also expensive.

Speaker 2 (08:15):
It was ridiculous.

Speaker 1 (08:16):
Hey, you know what this one goes out to dude, dude,
This one goes.

Speaker 2 (08:20):
Up, dude, where's my coke?

Speaker 1 (08:21):
Yeah? I saw I saw one of these on the
ground in New Orleans, covered in piss and vomit. It
said bro on it, and I was like, yep.

Speaker 2 (08:27):
Quickly rip to the Pope. Luke, the Latin American hero.
I know that that hit big in your family. One
what twelve hours after shaking jd Vance's.

Speaker 1 (08:34):
Hand, I'm not saying nothing.

Speaker 2 (08:36):
I'm just so wild, but shout out to everybody morning
that of course in the world, it might be time though,
to get into the show, don't you as you crack
open that can?

Speaker 1 (08:45):
All right?

Speaker 2 (08:45):
That can of whoop ass? Oh yeah, by the way,
didn't wake up Boode too shit out right?

Speaker 9 (08:49):
Now.

Speaker 1 (08:49):
I want to challenge that for a little bit because
what I had read, I had read that it was
he got booed, and then I saw a bunch of
people being like, he didn't get booed, and I rewatched
the broadcast, So there were two watched wrestling No no, no,
just the clips of him being and now you know,
Daniel White like he's being introduced on the broadcast. On
the first clip, I didn't really hear it. Second clip,

(09:10):
I hear it. I definitely hear it, but it sounded
a little more mixed. Blue tis shit doesn't sound right? Okay.

Speaker 2 (09:17):
He did voice the intro, which was interesting to the
first night of wrestle any event, and then the second
night of WrestleMania got ruined by Dwayne Johnson not even
being there. But that's another topic for people that care
about that. Hey, let's get into our show and it's
topic number one right about right now? Hey, uh UFC
three seventeen, You remember that that's International Fight Week June
twenty eighth in Las Vegas, the biggest card of the year.

(09:38):
But we are sixty eight days away from that, and
we don't have a main event. So after Kevin Ioley's
report on Sunday that an injury to middleweight champion Driccis
Duplessy will keep him from a potential IFW headlining role
against Hamza Chremayav, you also have Oh, by the way,
lightweight champion Islamaha chevs under no circumstances will he granted

(10:02):
title defense to Eliotaporia. Connor McGregor's on drugs. Who knows
about Jones versus aspinall So, Luke, UFC appears to be
running out of a time to make the type of
main event that makes IFW matter. Remember it's All of
Fame Week. It's so many things going on with that
fan fest, Lucas things stand right now, what is the
promotion's best remaining option in light of the injury and

(10:25):
light of the uncertainty going on for June twenty eighth,
UFC three one seven.

Speaker 1 (10:31):
They still have a couple of hands to play. They
still have are I should say a couple of cards?
They could play a couple of hands whatever. The proper
metaphor is long.

Speaker 2 (10:37):
Oh, I already did it, Long Island, thank you?

Speaker 1 (10:40):
Are they okay?

Speaker 2 (10:41):
Yeah? Yeah, I already did that that reader, Oh okay.

Speaker 10 (10:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (10:45):
So there's still a few hands that could be played here.
And I understand the fan panic. In fact, I believe
that they had telegraphed that I was on vacation, so
I missed some of this. I believe that they had
telegraphed they were going to announce some things about UFC
three seventeen during the middle of the week, and then
the middle of the week came and went and we
didn't get an answer to this.

Speaker 2 (11:01):
Dana also telegraphed late last year when he said there'd
be a fight that we wouldn't believe that would be
announced this year.

Speaker 1 (11:06):
Yeah, and we don't appear to be any closer to that.
So what I want to say is I understand that
there is deep concern about what kind of main event
we're actually going to get. But for an exercise, if
I may, I'd like to review some previous International Fight
Week main events and see if we can figure out
what might be a roadmap for the future.

Speaker 2 (11:28):
Are you trying to say without saying that that's calling
it the biggest fight card of the year and expecting
some blockbuster might not be a reality.

Speaker 1 (11:35):
What I can say is, if you look at the
history of International Fight Weeks, they do typically try to
book a big fight with a big star and if possible,
one in some kind of rivalry. Now that's not always possible,
but you know, you did get I think silvasan in
two was one of these such cases. In previous years
that would be big star and Anderson Silva title fight, rivalry, rematch,

(12:01):
perfect headlining kind of thing. However, what you commonly get
is something where you get a little bit of half
of that, where you get one really big name star
in a title fight, but the dance partner may not
necessarily blow you away. So let me give you an example.
The last one we were at together UFC two seventy six,
that was Izzy versus Jared Kennoneer. Now that also had

(12:22):
Volk versus Max three on it, so it had some
supporting cast, but by itself, Izzy versus kennon ear was
not necessarily something that was going to blow you away
in a similar Vein UFC two thirty nine, John Jones
versus Thiago Santos, again somewhat hotly anticipated John Jones' big name,
but not the biggest. I don't remember who the coman

(12:44):
was exactly for that one. You could pick some other ones.
You can go down the list. Cherry Chris Widen versus
Leota Machida. That was somewhat anticipated because you had a
former champion Macheedah dropping down. He had won a couple
to get this spot. It served a useful that's good,
good to good to very good, right, not great? Yes,
that's good to me.

Speaker 2 (13:04):
It ain't Connor Poorrier two.

Speaker 1 (13:07):
No, it's not even close. In fact, the biggest ones
would be, as I mentioned, silvasan In two, silvasan In one,
by the way, sorry Silvia Wideman, sorry silver Wideman. Steve A.
Miochich Cormier was a big one as well, and then
of course Connor versus Chad men As would be the
biggest of them all.

Speaker 2 (13:21):
And then you know, John versus DC two would have
been would have been so, by the way, would have
been Nate versus Connor two, which was originally scheduled for
UFC IFW.

Speaker 1 (13:31):
Two, also Cruz versus Favor UFC one thirty two, and
you even got Whitaker versus Romero UFC two thirteen. What
I'm trying to tell folks is what you should be
looking for when I think makes the most sense about
who's available. Pick a big name star, somebody that is
on the pound for pound list, somebody that's a champion,
and they're probably going to be making a routine title

(13:53):
defense because honestly, who else is really left at this point?
Let's go down the list. BC. Could they make International
Fight Week at least in terms of timing John Jones
versus Tom aspinall they could, but it doesn't seem like
that's in the cards for that part of the year.
Probably gonna be New York, right probably because they have

(14:14):
to divide their calendar in that way. So that's out.
Connor is on Tucker Carlson. I mean, I don't even
know what to fuck to even say about something like that.
So you've got Islam, You've got Ilia, But you can stop.

Speaker 2 (14:24):
The sentence right there. So you've got Islam, you've got Ilia,
but they're not going to make the fuck are we
doing here? That is a Stop Traffic Superstar fight number
one versus two Pounds for pound two champions, although obviously
Eli had to give up his belt to move up, Like,
what are we doing here? Why is that not automatically
the fight? You could say, well, because Islam doesn't want it,
So let's show if you don't mind long Island Luke First,

(14:47):
I want to hear Topouria on Rogan talking about this fight.
Let's watch this.

Speaker 10 (14:51):
I would like to fight with Islam.

Speaker 8 (14:54):
But if they don't give you that fight, if they
give you like a number one contender fight, when would
you like.

Speaker 2 (14:58):
To fight Will and five for number one?

Speaker 1 (15:01):
Come to it's the most marketable fight.

Speaker 10 (15:03):
I don't care if Islam decides that he doesn't want
to fight me, I don't care. I said till you're
going to have to fight me. Okay, you say that
you are the world champion, you're going to keep dominating
the division all that I'm here. You can't keep avoiding
me all the time.

Speaker 2 (15:19):
So you would just sit on the sidelines rather than
fight someone.

Speaker 10 (15:22):
I don't think that they're going to do that. I
get to promise that I would five for the title
in my next fight. So how much time you will
stop me and from the fighting, and I prove that
I deserve that chat.

Speaker 2 (15:38):
Once I pass him, I get the title.

Speaker 10 (15:41):
And you pulled me against party, so he was.

Speaker 2 (15:45):
Promised the title shot. It feels like Islam is waiting
to see the results of JDM versus Belaal to see
if he's going to move up and wait. We also
have a deleted tweet response from Islam if you can
show that where Tiporious said Habib knows I'm the one
to take the belt from Islam, only reason he doesn't
want Islam to fight me. That was in response to
some comments that had been given an interview. Then Mahche

(16:05):
briefly posted, don't mention my name or my coach until
you've beaten a top five opponent in my division. So look,
I understand the I guess you could say the politics
in play right here. A lot of people are saying, hey, Islam,
didn't you tell Morob that he had to fight Umar
because it was the number one next in line and
that's what you do in this game. I understand you
can make the argument that Elia is coming from another division,

(16:26):
but what argument are we making here? If you want
the summer attraction to be a Stpe versus DC, A
John versus DC. Taking two of your best brands that
are isn't gimmick related is like if you brought in
Connor like they tried to do with Chanley last year,
inter Connor pro out. That's a gimmick fight, but it
still sells. It matters. Ilia versus Islam is not a
gimmick fight. It's the two best damn fighters in the

(16:47):
world that happened to be in the same division at
the same time. Put the two brands together. This is
a stop traffic main event. We criticize UFC for charging
exorbitant ticket prices and bragging about the live gate records
that they're setting. This is the fight you charge that much,
you should put it in an allegiance and people will
come and they will come in masses and pay the
money to see your two best fighters in your promotion

(17:10):
fighting each other.

Speaker 1 (17:10):
What am I missing? Okay, let's let's game this out.
If they make this fight, Let's say JDM wins at
three point fifteen and Islam doesn't want to that now
wants to go up, but now you've already booked him
for whatever you call it. Uh you International Fight Week?
Who does let me we have to we have to

(17:31):
think about this. Who does JDM defend against and win?

Speaker 8 (17:35):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (17:35):
If he Ungary beats Carlos Practish, that's not a bad choice.

Speaker 1 (17:38):
Okay. And I guess whenever they go back to when
when Long Island, lud, do you know when the UFC
is going back to Australia. I don't know. They usually
go like November. Yeahs them that.

Speaker 2 (17:47):
Because of his dad's because he's a hardcore fan.

Speaker 1 (17:50):
And also his dad's got a ball bag that comes
from that. Okay. Uh.

Speaker 6 (17:56):
The what I'm trying to make is but wait, I
wanted to say shof cut JDM, shofcut.

Speaker 2 (18:00):
Walter Waite's so crowded that there's multiple names like can
fight JDM. So I think the argument's out of there.

Speaker 1 (18:04):
Okay, but they have they're probably gonna if JDM wins,
they're gonna want to save him for that Australia rotation.
I'm guessing something.

Speaker 2 (18:11):
Like also rumors Buckley's gonna fight O thisman.

Speaker 1 (18:12):
By the way. Okay, So but I'm just saying you
have to figure that part out. So now, if that happens,
do you do an immediate rematch no matter the result
of JDM versus no no no no of Islam Metaporia.

Speaker 2 (18:25):
I mean, I don't I don't know, immediate rematch, Let's
just get one on the books.

Speaker 7 (18:28):
What do we do?

Speaker 1 (18:29):
You have to This is the point about doing these
fights is you have to consider the implications if if
in other words, at one seventy, if Bala Mohammad loses,
even if it's like a really fucked up decision, you
just have to imagine the UFC you'll probably be like, oh, tough, okay,
let's just move on to the next one. But if
Islam loses, it's the pound for pound number one guy

(18:50):
in the sport. There are going to be conversations about
what you do with him in the event that he loses.
Even if he gets fucking.

Speaker 2 (18:57):
Straight, Let's do a rematch if it's close or if
it's a shocking.

Speaker 1 (19:01):
So now that leaves a question of, like what do
you do with Gaichi? The UFC might want to honor
what he's done for them by gifting him as some
kind of gifting, like you know he's in position for it,
but assigning him a title fight. The one I'm trying
to make is if you want to pull the ripcord
on this to make this fight, you're saying that you
have to make the maximally biggest fight. And what I

(19:22):
think the UFC wants to do is probably that if
they can. But they're mostly trying to balance people make
this mistake, and I'm not this is gonna sound like
it's some kind of like unfair criticism of You'll see,
I'm not. I'm honestly not trying to do it that way.
I really am not. I'm just trying to get them
to look at it. Do they want to make events,
of course they do, but they also want to make calendars. Sure, Sure,

(19:45):
And when you're making calendars, robbing Peter to pay Paul
carries risk and consequences for what could happen down the line. Now, listen,
if Balog goes in there and smokes JDM, it kind
of narrows Islam's options in a major way. But if
he gets fucked up at three point fifteen, it changes
the equation dramatically at that point, especially for what Islam
wants to do in his career. And by the way,

(20:06):
if you go in there, and if he goes in
there and wastes Ilia and to Poria, excuse me, and
JDM was available at one seventy. It just you have
to think about how this plays out for the twenty
twenty five calendar year. I'm not saying that's not a
reason to not make it.

Speaker 2 (20:20):
Are you saying that if if Islam were to lose
to Ilia, it would ruin the idea of him moving
up and fighting for the title right away.

Speaker 1 (20:27):
That completely destroys it. If you can't beat a guy
moving up from forty five, why are we wasting our
time with anybody at seventy.

Speaker 2 (20:33):
But at least there's enough names at seventy and marketable
sexy names. I think where you can keep that title
picture alive. It's not like you're killing the division. I'm
wondering if and the announced fights already by the way
for UFC three seventeen June twenty eighth, Pantosia is gonna
defend against KAIKR France, the Flyway by Brandon roy Vall
against Menelkopp, very good fight, the fight with division, and
then we're gonna get a tour of TAFA with Justin

(20:55):
against Jahanada Denise. I butchered that name, sorry whatever, Uh
but the point.

Speaker 1 (21:01):
Here is uh damn, I don't give a fuck, even
if you.

Speaker 2 (21:04):
Didn't want to run Ilia directly into Islam. But again,
it's like, if you can't give us John and aspenall
in a reasonable amount of time, and you can't give
us Connor McGregor, and I get why, Like, could you
please give like what you're supposed to do, what you're
all about making the best fight the best Okay, but
let's say you didn't do that. Could you do justin
Gatgee versus Islam in the main event and Ilia making

(21:26):
his one fifty five debut in the Comaine against a
big name Charles for example, Sarukian.

Speaker 1 (21:32):
You could do that, but it sounds like it sounds
like Taporia doesn't want a piece of that, which drives
me nuts, because did.

Speaker 2 (21:41):
They promise him though yes or no? He says yes?
Is a promise a promise anymore?

Speaker 1 (21:46):
I don't even know what that either promises. I don't
know what I don't know what that is supposed to
even mean. At this point, I'm not saying that they
haven't done that, but like, as the circumstances change, the
need to enforce this changes, and I don't even I
don't I don't even know what to say about that.
I mean, the question you have to ask yourself is
and I'm not getting into the fighter pay debate. I'm
just asking could they make it? In other words, maybe

(22:08):
they went to Islam and maybe they went to Iliot.
They're like, hey, we want you guys for this particular date.
We want to make it, and Islam's like, yeah, I
don't know, and Tiporia is like, well, I would do it,
but I'm not gonna take number one contender. To what
extent does a little more of this change their options?
And I don't know how to answer that question because
I don't really know what really the hold up is,
but it's something at least on the back of my

(22:29):
mind if we really have to make this. But this
is the point I wanted to I'm going back to
BC is do they feel like this is the answer?
This is the question you have to answer. Do they
feel like they have to make International Fight Week main
events as maximally big as possible? And I guess I
don't know the answer to that.

Speaker 2 (22:47):
Not only do they not have to under the setup
of their ESPN deal, which expires soon, but you can
also make the argument of why waste some of these
big bullet fights when you're about to sign with a
Netflix or a Prime right, and wouldn't you a fight
like this level to kick it off? But I've also
got to say, like, what do you owe the fans
when you're already in a year that has water down

(23:07):
match making and it's a topic on our show every week.
This is a no brainer. It's sitting in front of you.
Answer this about a guy I respect the shit out
of Islam Mahachev, the best fighter in the world. I
love the I mean I love him as a fighter.
What's really going on with his stance that Toporia doesn't
deserve it? Is it only about Hey, the UFC kind
of softly maybe promised me that I could go up

(23:28):
another division? Why would I have to fight this killer first?
Isn't the m all of Mahachev and other hammers of
his kind that they're going to take on all comers?
How many did you see that spliced the video fans
are putting out on Twitter of all the times that
Mahachev was like, set up the next guy in line,
I'll take him out. I fight the best all the time.
Isn't this a bad look to be so bold? In

(23:50):
the same way we criticize John Jones for publicly talking
his way out of the aspinal fight. In almost every
interview he gives right acting like it doesn't matter to him,
or it's not big and he doesn't want it, or
whatever the case is. Shouldn't we give that same criticism
to Islam In.

Speaker 1 (24:04):
This case, Islam didn't sit active for years at a time,
and like hold a title hostage. I mean, he's been
much more active, So to me, it's not the same
kind of thing. Also, it's like, oh, a fighter said
one thing at one point in their career and now
they're saying a different thing at a different point in
their career.

Speaker 2 (24:18):
Shouldn't he If you're the number one in the world,
shouldn't it be about defending that. I mean, come on,
I think I'm not even an Ilia guy here.

Speaker 7 (24:26):
I was gonna say, do you think it's the fact
that Ilia is a natural forty five and all Islam's
title defenses have been against former forty five ors.

Speaker 1 (24:33):
Maybe he wants Yeah, it's not like he's duck in
smoke if he's wanting a guy at seventy and again,
he's the only reason he doesn't want Balal is because
they are Obviously they have a relationship from training together.
It's not like he's doesn't want tough fights. He just
wants the right kind of tough fight at this point, which,
by the way, you can also make the claim that
if you're Iliot to excuse me, if you're Islam Makachev
and doing what he's done and fought who he's fought,

(24:53):
maybe he's earned that position. Maybe he's got just a
few fights left in his career and he wants to
make maximal use out of them. He doesn't want to
fight a guy another guy coming up from forty five,
who if Islam goes in there and smokes him, they're
going to be like, oh, all he does is beat
up forty five ers again.

Speaker 2 (25:07):
Yeah, but this is different. And by the way, that
the major forty five I agree, major argument surrounds Volkanovski,
who was the number one fighter at the time when
they foilt. So I'm not even gonna count that as
a forty five or blown up. The first fight was
that close. Okay, I'm not even gonna count that. Number
two to Poria is not a natural small one forty
five or moving up. He's the second best fighter in
the world on my pomp for pound list, he's on

(25:28):
the verge of breakout, start them. It's a different conversation.

Speaker 1 (25:32):
It sounds to me like what you want is a
promoter to make a maximum effort on certain tent pole events.
Let me finish, Yeah, the best to fight the best.
I don't think that's crazy. I'm not. I'm not in
any way disagreeing with GBC. I really am not. But
I just don't know if that's where we are with
how events get made.

Speaker 2 (25:48):
I just don't get that there's not a unanimous fan
reaction that this has to be the next fight to make,
and it makes more sense than it doesn't. In fact,
it makes all the sense. I understand if you're an
Islam super fan and you're trying to make the case
that he's earned it. I get that there's other lanes
where you can argue against it. But isn't it, at
the end of the day about number one fight number two?
And they happen to be in the same division, they're

(26:09):
both huge stars. Am I missing?

Speaker 8 (26:11):
No?

Speaker 1 (26:11):
I think most fans, from what I can tell online
and again, online sentiment is not necessarily always the best indicator.
Certainly online most people agree with you. Most people are
like I don't care what this means or what the
obstacles are. It's the biggest fight they can make, or
at least one of the very biggest fights they can make.
And certainly even John versus Tom I think is a
much bigger fight. But I think a much better fight. Honestly,

(26:35):
there's a pure fight is probably gonna be islam Ilia
because you're getting two guys who are absolute peak of
their powers, whereas John is clearly not at the peak
of his powers and Tom Asminal probably is. And you know,
I don't know what that asymmetry will be for the
fight itself, but I'm just saying number one versus number
two pound for pound, if that's the way you have it,
that's a fight that cannot be topped. Plus it'd be exciting.
Plus they, you know, not got power in the case

(26:56):
of Tuporia super well, I think most fans certainly agree
with you. Why aren't we getting it? If that's if
it's so, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (27:06):
This is it that people don't make extreme a side
salaries that even though we always argue when we talk
about Jones aspinall UFC could pay that tomorrow.

Speaker 1 (27:14):
They don't need to think if you're Islam, are you
making a lot more money fighting JDM than you are
to Pouria.

Speaker 2 (27:23):
I don't know, so you're not. No, But in that one,
at least JDM is going to make a certain amount,
Islam's going to make this much. This seems to be
a matchup where they're both going to make super a
side money. Right, So I'm asking you if this is
the UFC just not wanting to break out or TKO
not wanting to break out of the recent financial amount
that they're paying for each fight, the same reason why
we say they could make Jones aspinal tomorrow, but they

(27:43):
don't want to set certain precedents with Jones, are they
saying and would that be part of this conversation am
I looking to do?

Speaker 1 (27:50):
I don't think that that would preclude them from making it, okay,
But the question then becomes if, in a world where
guys are getting less and less from pay per view,
if they would be enticed with bigger guarantees and that
might be harder to procure to what extent that could
be doing it? But I honestly feel like that's really
not even it. I would honestly feel like the biggest

(28:11):
thing is the fact that he's at forty five and
he hasn't beaten anyone in the top five. And again,
whatever inconsistent logic you might be getting from Islam is
irrelevant at this point. Like he has some leverage. He
has I want to say, minimal but modest amount of
time left. And I'm not saying he can call all

(28:31):
the shots, but he can call some of them.

Speaker 2 (28:34):
I mean, it's not lost on me that you can
keep two huge stars two huge stars by not running
him into each other. But it's sort of like, what
is your mo as a promo?

Speaker 1 (28:43):
This is going to sound unfair because I'm like, oh,
I'm just blaming it, you know, a different part of
the game. But I am saying that, like if the
women's game had more stars, or even just any other
division had more stars, we wouldn't be quite as reliant
on like one or two matchups to make these big fight,
big fights in the calendar. But again, I don't think
there's a damn thing wrong with making Islam versus Ilia
other than the principles in these cases don't want to

(29:07):
make it. And it's kind of bumping up against the
fact finding mission of three fifteen and just creates complication.
I think you might end up getting it, which you
might end up getting it kind of late.

Speaker 2 (29:17):
You may end up getting it to kick off the
prime era or whoever we're going there. So the DDP
injury is not like officially official, but Kevin and Iola
sort of threw it in his column, and the column
was based around the idea in his opinion that given
all these matchmaking circumstances, that Mahchev versus gai Chi is
probably the right move to go in that direction. We
could certainly argue that it's not a bad fight by

(29:37):
any means, but is it the best fight they can make?
But he sort of threw it in there as almost
after the fact that by the way, I'm hearing that
DDP is hurt. Tramaiav instantly took to social media and
let's see his reaction. This guy biggest bullshit. DDP did
respond this morning, by the way, by showing essentially like
the Wikipedia page of Tremaiav's history.

Speaker 1 (29:58):
Of like yeah, which is quite extensive or whatever.

Speaker 2 (30:00):
That is right there, you're also seeing I always say
his last name wrong, Kyo Bohalio Bihalio saying I'll fight
Tamayah and then saying on Twitter that Tamaia have accepted it,
and then even going as far as saying that fight
has to be for the interim title, even though GDP
just fought two months ago. Yeah no, could that be

(30:21):
like a comain that you'd be okay with? We don't
need an interm.

Speaker 1 (30:23):
Title on that right, not to say you wouldn't get one.

Speaker 2 (30:28):
Uh, could tamayav main event in IFW for an interim
title against an opponent that isn't a star.

Speaker 1 (30:38):
Oh, that's a good question, I'd be that's a great question.

Speaker 2 (30:41):
You could argue that's watered down, or you could say
tamaiav is a breakout.

Speaker 1 (30:44):
Well, first of all, on its own terms, Chamaia versus
Boholio is a great fight, right because Bohalio is good
on the ground, you would imagine would be able to
have some kind of an answer for a least portions
of that game. And by the way, his striking is
getting better as well, and he's kind of definitely has
moved through the contentership que fairly and competently. Could you

(31:06):
do that as like a box office thing for International
Fight Week? If you slapped an interim title on it.
I think you could get away with it because people
are just desperate for Hamzat to ascend. But that would
be a bit of a letdown because even then it
still doesn't set up the big one. There needs to
be some kind of major title resolution. At International Fight Week,

(31:26):
John Jones had a big title. You have to put
a big title on the line here, So like you
could get away with an interim definitely as the co Maine,
I don't know how that plays as a main event.
That's a tougher self.

Speaker 2 (31:38):
When McGregor pulled out with the toe injury last year,
the recurring theme was just called Poton and he once
again saved the day and delivered a big knockout in
the main event. Just like you did at UFC three hundred.
You brought out the idea of well, if everyone's healthy
and willing, could we just do Anklaia of defending in
a rematch against Poton and that'll fix all of this?
Would that fix all of this in your eyes?

Speaker 1 (31:58):
First of let me say one thing. I know that
the biggest International Fight Week is Mendez McGregor. That was
supposed to be Aldo McGregor. He pulled out and it
was for an interim title. But like McGregor was red
hot at that time and UFC one ninety four.

Speaker 2 (32:11):
Gregor could have gave a press conference in the main
event exactly.

Speaker 1 (32:13):
So that's a very different circumstance. I don't feel like
Jimia is quite on that level. So in any case,
could you do the Poeton on calive thing, Yes you could.
If you needed to pull that trigger, you could do it,
But once again, what does that do to the remaining
part of the calendar? Less a concern for two five.
I know Olberg is in the waiting wings, is waiting
in the wings, but doesn't really have a mandate because

(32:35):
that when over Jan was fine but not remarkable.

Speaker 2 (32:39):
I think he's got a lot of woman dates to be.

Speaker 1 (32:42):
He might have, he might have, you know, he's had
some plowing to do, you know what I mean. He's
not a farmer, so I think you could get away
with it. But all these things where it's like you know,
creating destination event at the top of by by how
you match make at the top of a card, it's
difficult to do. You have to. It's the kinds of matchups.
There's a bunch of stuff they could do as you

(33:02):
mentioned Islam versus Gay Chee. I think it's probably your
leading Candidge.

Speaker 2 (33:07):
If Kevin Elie is writing about it, probably is. He
seems to be very connected and up on that. What
about star power wise Islam versus Max Holloway. Do you
remove Holloway because he got knocked out recently or do
you say, well he beat Gai Chee at one fifty five,
he's the BMF champion. I know we're earmarking him for Poorier.

Speaker 1 (33:24):
Right, So yeah, I don't think they're gonna pull that trigger.
I think they definitely want that trilogy for the Louisiana show.
I think what Smoothie king Center's words kind of which
is right next to the super Dome, would is.

Speaker 2 (33:34):
That a pay per view, by the way, would almost
have to be right.

Speaker 1 (33:37):
I don't know that.

Speaker 6 (33:38):
I think it's supposed to be a fight night.

Speaker 1 (33:39):
Yeah for them, that's a great fight NW.

Speaker 2 (33:43):
Mean you could kind of could you make that as
the as the three seventeen and just be like, sorry,
New Orleans, Uh, we're going in this direction.

Speaker 1 (33:49):
I could you main event with that.

Speaker 2 (33:52):
It's so much star power that people would not get
angry on.

Speaker 1 (33:55):
I don't think that who would complain about the fight.
Nobody Poorier retirement fight is history. I think if you
had a strong supporting cast and their rematch was fire,
it was fire. I think if you had a strong
supporting cast, people would be happy. But as it stands,
as good as those flyweight fights are that you listed,
including the title fight, those are quality fights, but those

(34:15):
are not gonna get people to look the other way.
And not having the big the big hammer, oh yeah,
or your main event.

Speaker 2 (34:21):
This to Freddie, Hey, long Al, look are we missing anything?
What is there a match up, a name that we're
not bringing out here that could do this?

Speaker 7 (34:28):
No, I said to you, guys like Poton Unclive. To me,
at this point feels the most likely. And like to
Luke's point about holding up divisions, they've talked about doing
this rematch anyway, so I don't think.

Speaker 6 (34:39):
It holds up any like Olberg should be next. But
realistically they're probably gonna do the rematch regardless.

Speaker 1 (34:43):
So yeah, no, they're gonna do the Olberg doesn't have
a mandate.

Speaker 6 (34:46):
I mean, so why not just do it at International
Fight Week?

Speaker 1 (34:48):
You got the KKF. Pantosia is the colemane. I mean,
this is this is I fully agree this, But this
is my only problem with all of this is and
I think this is what you're feeling as well, which
is I get again they're build in calendars. That's different
than making events. But it just feels to me like
what hole could we plug is a very different conversation
than what jewel could we build around? You know what

(35:11):
I mean? Like, oh, we can this will this can
go in here? You know. It's almost like you ever
seen those cooking shows where it's like, Okay, your your
ingredients are licorice, bubble gum, banana peels, cigarette butts, and
rock salt, and you're like, you got to make some
dish versus hey, chef, just make the best dish with
the best ingredients you can and you might get a

(35:32):
better meal one way or the other. But they're a
very different kind of process by which you are making
a dish.

Speaker 2 (35:39):
And should your counter to my aggressive push that islam
Ilia needs to be next? Should it have been on
sixty eight days? Notice you know what I mean? Like
you would want to you would want to.

Speaker 1 (35:48):
Hype that's a doable amount of They don't really hype.

Speaker 2 (35:50):
It like that anymore.

Speaker 8 (35:51):
Though.

Speaker 2 (35:51):
It's the old days of press tours and stuff doesn't
happen as much.

Speaker 1 (35:55):
Yeah, but again sixty eight is fine, Like as as
how much time do you have to do a camp,
that's plenty. That's plenty of time.

Speaker 4 (36:02):
All right.

Speaker 2 (36:03):
Interesting. One final note regarding headliners and injuries. The UFC
three sixteen man event. Of course, I believe June seventh, Newark,
New Jersey is the rematch as Morob Defense's Bandon Whit
title against Shaan O'Malley. What did you make of that
video that's out there? I guess Sean O'Malley and people
were surveying land of where he's going to build his
new house and he seemed to be on crutches. Is

(36:23):
that troublesome? Is that worrisome?

Speaker 1 (36:25):
I don't know what's real anymore through the internet pranks.

Speaker 2 (36:29):
Or if it took place a year ago.

Speaker 1 (36:30):
Yeah exactly. I don't.

Speaker 2 (36:31):
Well, now, look you had anything it to add to this.

Speaker 6 (36:34):
I didn't even see that.

Speaker 1 (36:35):
I mean, I'll just say this, God help him if
it's true.

Speaker 2 (36:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (36:37):
Maybe the whole reason that they're making this event is
in part because they are trying to find them. By
the way, when that fight got announced, like the mass
confusion over how that fight got made was like baffling
to me, like how could the UFC make this? And
I'm like, how could they not make it? I mean again,
you could have pulled the trigger. Yes, you could have
pulled the trigger on a twenty five versus thirty five

(37:00):
super fight, you could have done that.

Speaker 2 (37:02):
But again, but even that doesn't sell.

Speaker 1 (37:04):
That doesn't sell, and that also creates logjams and potentially
and then the divisions depending on what happens there. More
to the point like, oh, we're just gonna have Brobdwallas
WHEELI versus PYOTR Yann. We're gonna try and sell that
in North American market. This is a fine fight to sell,
but you need probably if you're gonna sell to a
North American in particularly American pay per view buying audience,

(37:24):
probably is gonna help to have an American on there
probably gonna be one that at least had some kind
of a push behind them, although that that has certainly faded.
But the point I wanted to make is like O'Malley
selling this has been Oh, I was fucked up the
first time. If you're fucked up the second time, I mean,
I don't know, you're I don't know what to tell you, and.

Speaker 2 (37:42):
You make a great point. Who I don't know to
believe videos on the anymore with all this AI.

Speaker 1 (37:46):
Bullshit, not even that it's just like I hope for
your sake it's not true, because the entire selling point
is that you were injured last time.

Speaker 2 (37:52):
I fully agree with you on that one. Wild times
will see how that plays out. But speaking of time,
speaking about a good time, By the way, now is
a very good time to remember where Tequila's story truly began. Yes,
in seventeen ninety five, Quervo invented tequila. I said that
right since then, Cuervo had stayed true to its roots.
We're talking about the same family, the same land, the

(38:14):
same passion for what they do. Two hundred and thirty
years later, we're still here. Quervo is in every pore,
every margarita, and in every celebration, including when you have
three of them at an MK Live show. But more importantly,
it's time to enjoy the tequila that started at all, Quervo,
the tequila that invented tequila. Proximo Quervo dot com. Please

(38:36):
drink responsibly, and Luke, we have a great relationship with cuervop.
How about that episode of pregame Preview three fourteen that
we did right before our vacations with one Jed Michu
the second entertaining piece of business.

Speaker 1 (38:48):
Yes, aside from getting lice from Jed, I had a
wonderful time in here. Shots to Cuervo being great sponsors,
wonderful to drink.

Speaker 2 (38:54):
That the blanco.

Speaker 1 (38:55):
Yeah. I can't wait for UFC three fifteen. I know
people are kind of bagging on that main event. I
gotta say you, I like that that mad An event
quite a bit. I think it's going to be much
better than people think. And I look forward to getting
ready for it with our friends at Quaver right here,
returning this studio.

Speaker 2 (39:07):
Maybe we'll get maybe we'll get old man menden Hall
out of the bullpen, all right, maybe we'll get up.

Speaker 1 (39:11):
Took his hat off off camera. Yeah, oh boy. And
I was like, I was like, I saw the scene
at the end at the end of Return of the Jedi.
You don't you don't make it out of here, Bud.

Speaker 2 (39:21):
All right, Hey, it's time for topic number two. And
when we're talking about, by the way, the PFL, the
Professional Fighters League, and let's be honest, and fair because
that's what we always try to be. It's been a
tough year for pr for the PFL, despite the success
of Dermaga, metof versus Hughes and the fact that three
cards into their tournament season, it has been kind of

(39:42):
action packed indecent. Well, let's talk about bigger picture stuff.
The biggest picture, the biggest star they have. You could
argue Dakota Ditcheva, the one hundred and twenty five pound
superstar who won their million dollars in their tournament last year,
kind of quickly and brutally defeating former UFC title challenger
Tyler Santos. Well, the Coota Ditchiva hasn't fought since closing

(40:03):
out twenty twenty four. She did arrive at att in
South Florida for a sit down with that guy MMA junkies,
Mike Bone and Luke. What we heard out of her
was Ditcheva airing her concern over her PFL future, including
a lack of communication from the promotion, no concrete plans
for her next fight, and the promotion kind of just

(40:24):
being like, we don't really know when you're gonna fight next.
Let's listen in. We certainly want to react to this,
here's Mike Bone and Dakota.

Speaker 8 (40:31):
It's point, in the past three years you'd had two
fights under your belt already, So I mean, I'm sure
it's nice you got the big prize. Life's probably good,
but I'm sure you're getting itchy knuckles right, definitely.

Speaker 2 (40:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (40:42):
I mean the prize, like you said, was amazing, The
belt's amazing. But for me, I want to fight. You know,
I loved fighting four times last year. The year before that,
fought three times the year before that for four times.
So I've always been a really active fighter. So this
for me now, especially not having anything even lined up,
is really like mentally challenging for me, Like I've really
got to just believe in the process and let everything

(41:05):
happen how it should. It's testing me for sure. Like
that's probably why I went home because at the start
of the year I was hearing I was hearing Florida
training with nothing like lined up, seeing everybody trained for
this tournament, it was really disheartening for me. So I
went home and refreshed a little bit. Now I'm back,
ready to get back in the gym and hopefully something
will come up by them.

Speaker 8 (41:23):
Got to put you in there at some point, and
I assume you have a contract and they do, oh
you fights at some points exactly.

Speaker 3 (41:28):
Yeah, that's another thing, Like I'm in contracting. You guys
have to have me fight so I know that they
will pull something out.

Speaker 7 (41:32):
Of the bag.

Speaker 3 (41:33):
There's just been a lot of changes obviously. This whole
year has been a big change for themselves. I'll trust
that they they bring something for me.

Speaker 8 (41:40):
It's just sp a bummer because I know after the
last fights, You're like, I want them to find something
that's going to test me and like, you know, raise
up the level. But now it seems like it's just
get me anything.

Speaker 3 (41:48):
Yeah, I'm just like getting anything literally, But like you said,
you know, it was kind of it's harder. I get
it's hard for PFL. You know, they've put all the
girls in the tournament and then now they need to
find someone that's that's gonna kind of give me a
good competition. They can't give me someone that's you know,
just kind of signed to the PFL and not really
had that much experience, because it doesn't make sense. I've
just beat Santos very easily. I think that's another thing

(42:12):
that I have to understand is like, if I'd had
a five round war with Santos, there would have been
a few more people in there that would have been
more of a match. But I walked through it. I
walked through everyone last year. So it just put them
in a difficult position now, and I get it. But
I'm sure they'll work to find someone.

Speaker 2 (42:26):
So look, this video was last Thursday, went viral quickly.
The following night, on the PFL three broadcast of their
tournament season, they brought to Koda Ditcheva ringside and this
is what they said.

Speaker 4 (42:38):
Yeah, excited to have you here. So a little bird
telling me in my ear that we've got good news.
It'll be a July fight for Dakota Ditchiva.

Speaker 3 (42:47):
I did just have a great chat with darm I
did actually feel a little bit more hopeful.

Speaker 7 (42:51):
Now.

Speaker 3 (42:52):
I think people are getting a little bit stressed that
they weren't going to have me fight this year. But guys,
I'm coming back.

Speaker 4 (42:56):
Don't worry. There was always the plan to have the
Cooda Ditchiva fighting in twenty twenty five. It will be
the first of four Champions Series dates in the twenty
twenty five calendar.

Speaker 2 (43:09):
Now, to be fair, no opponent, no official date, no location.
What does this say when the biggest piece that PFL
has the arguing point, someone that essentially homegrown and built
their stardom through them, that is young, ready to take
over the world, that she has to go public to
complain to get noticed. I know that they tried to

(43:31):
fix the next day, but what does this say about
the promotion's attitude and maybe their structure, because all they
care about now is this tournament matching guys in rematches
the second rate people like this with no titles at stake.
Where do you weigh in on this?

Speaker 1 (43:47):
This is something that we've This version of the issue
is new. This version of as you mentioned and we
saw the video Dakoda Dish was speaking of, is by
the way, it's my bond bonfire.

Speaker 2 (43:58):
Oh okay, I guess I'll staying more of his like, you.

Speaker 1 (44:01):
Know, a bit and then you're like you double down
on him, like it's kind of.

Speaker 2 (44:04):
Just adopted that pronunciation.

Speaker 1 (44:06):
Listen, if you're kind of like you and Cass, Yeah, yeah, well,
I mean that's different. But either way he calls it Bob,
I'll just put that. But to the point, this is
a new version of the issue, but it's an old,
and it's a lingering issue. It's one that we've covered
on the show extensively, and I feel like a broken
record when we go over this because there's like denial

(44:26):
about it. But now you're just beginning to see evidence
that there can no longer be denial about it. If
you want to understand how this promotion is suffering to
a degree, they're a slave to a content format sure
that cripples them, and they are trying to figure out

(44:47):
ways to get around it. And they have some of
that going for them, certainly to be clear, back the
first show of the Year in January of this year
with Usman and Paul Hughes as an example of getting
around that. And by the way, just want to point out,
look how good that show was.

Speaker 2 (45:01):
And that main event was a Fight of the Year content.

Speaker 1 (45:03):
It was a year contender. They were in a great venue.
Like I don't know how they can look at that
event and be like, gee, do you think it makes
more sense to go to a place now in this
particular case, I think they were in cutter or Guitar
and they're probably paid to be there. But it was
a great venue, it was a great crowd, It was
a signature main event with a card that was built
below it, rather than being a slave to a tournament structure.

(45:27):
But here is the central tension. Here's what is happening
with PFL. We've often talked about how they posture almost
as like in treating their company as like a financial
asset rather than a fight promotion, and that's certainly been
part of it. But in order to raise money from investors,
it seems like they feel it that they have to
have some kind of silly ass differentiator to the UFC. Aha,

(45:51):
We're not just a UFC light we are a UFC competitor.
We do things a little bit differently here. That's our
value add And they essentially just try to gamify everything
by creating, in this particular case, tournament systems for all
of their weight classes. And then they have these long
delays in the calendar and everything else.

Speaker 2 (46:09):
But what could they put her in the main event
on a tournament card against somebody else to keep the
chains moving.

Speaker 1 (46:13):
They certainly could, but then it would interfere with the
rest of their plans. But the one I'm trying to
make is what comes first in how they evaluate everything
is getting the tournament's needs met. And then they try
and piecemeal stuff on the back end, which is why
guys are having long droughts where they're not competing, where
they're finding out very late. No, this was obviously a
bit of ahead of time, assuming that that date holds

(46:34):
for July, again not a specific day, but you know,
the summer or whatever that they can make it happen.
But it's all something of an afterthought. Rather than having
the freedom to build a card, put guys under it.
Put ladies under it if they want to have, you know,
one tournament fight here or whatever, some kind of brand differentiator,

(46:55):
but then put Johnny Evlin at the top of the car,
patchy mixed at the top of the car to go
to ditch Oft. Rather than nimbly using that with the
freedom to kind of write their future, they are constrained
in this straight jacket of the tournament system. So they're
caught between what do we do to raise money from

(47:15):
investors because you're not raising it at the gate and
I'm not trying to be a dick, but that's obvious. Conversely,
by going to a model that is venture capital funded,
it constrains the ordinary things that they're able to do
to make their roster stand out. Something at some point
has to give Brian Campbell, and it should.

Speaker 2 (47:36):
Have given at the start of this year. And while
they do deserve praise for changing the things that the
fans were most complaining about, the ridiculous no elbows rule,
changing this tournament format in a way that they think
makes more sense to me, it only makes it more
convoluted for half the money and you don't even get
a championship at the end. It's one thing if you say, look,
Patricio Pipple is an all time legend, but he's thirty seven,

(47:58):
He's got a big belt er and that's just not
going to meet our financial plan to pay that. That's
one thing. But you let Aaron Pico go like they did,
it's unforgivable. You make Patchy Mix sit there and tweet
that he just wants to get recognized and get a
fight when he might be the best fighter on palmfer
Palm level. That they have unforgivable. You have new Normalgametolf
and Hughes, but then you disappear for two months. I'm
just saying, like they figured out some good things, like

(48:20):
getting Paul Hughes back in the main event. Coming up
great idea. But you can't have around with the Coda dischi.
But that's like your that's your crown jewel of somebody
to sell with and build upon. She had to go
to this length.

Speaker 1 (48:32):
Once again, they're not building fight events. They're building a
cop this is the building.

Speaker 2 (48:37):
Then you're gonna die or they're not building people.

Speaker 1 (48:39):
People think this is like a UFC specific criticism is
absolutely not. With these big promotions that are trying to
fill big content demands, they're building calendars. They are not
building events, Whereas if they were building events, they would
be able to sit back and go, wait a second,
let's get Oospin back in rotation. To your point, let's
get Dakota back and rotation. She would have already, dude,

(49:00):
it's the fifth month of the year. Almost almost, she
would have easily have fought by now. She would have
easily a fought.

Speaker 2 (49:06):
You can put her against anybody and just put the
PFL championship at stake, like actually declared champions. Don't give
out belts on pay per views and in All Star
Games they got fifteen belts BC.

Speaker 1 (49:16):
They don't generate money at the gate, they don't generate
money on pay per view. They generate money and B
to B sales or B two government sales and then
venture capital. You have to satisfy that master too. This
is the inherent contradiction in what they are trying to do.
They have to serve a master who ultimately undercuts the product.

Speaker 2 (49:37):
Okay, is the master the amount of dates or is
the master that it has to be the tournament format
where we wouldn't get this money because if it's only
about we have to fill the dates. They have smart
people that can.

Speaker 1 (49:48):
Match make Yes, Mike, Mike knows what he's doing. Yes,
we covered the.

Speaker 2 (49:52):
Beltsore end run on Showtime probably closer than anybody besides
Josh Thompson and Big John Right. It was always matched
very well. They took the resources they had and got
the most out of them. Are you telling me they
couldn't do that with these set PFL dates or are
you saying that they can't get the money unless they
push this gimmick of the tournament.

Speaker 1 (50:09):
I think that they can't. How are they going to
generate money if they've spent all this time not building
an audience.

Speaker 2 (50:18):
By taking the three or four or five names that
matter and pushing the shit out of them and keeping
them as active as possible. They're doing the exact opposite,
They're inactive.

Speaker 1 (50:29):
Yeah, that's the.

Speaker 2 (50:30):
Worst thing you can do.

Speaker 1 (50:31):
Again, what I think that they're doing is trying to
hold on to a business model that ultimately undercuts their
ability to do the thing that matters most for a
fight promotion, which is find develop and find and develop
stars and then attract audiences as a consequence. And that
system that they've built simply it gets you part of

(50:51):
the way there, and then it doesn't allow you to
capitalize on it. One more time. I'm just gonna say this.
I found it in my email, like maybe before I
went on vacation. I remember when Bjorn Rebnez Bellator sent
out an email being like, hey, if you fought in
a previous tournament, you don't have to fight in tournaments anymore.
We're gonna have our tournament system and then the post
tournament pool of contenders whatever the fuck name they gave

(51:13):
for it. And he lost his job about a week later,
like they realized you had to scrap that system completely,
and the Belt obviously fell in harder times eventually, anyway,
And I think that's that's the nature of Also, we
should just say, the elephant in the room here. I
don't know even if they made those changes that it
would save them. We should, we should be very clear
about that. But at the same time, for sure, this

(51:34):
way not being able to maximize your hottest talents, I
don't know how that serves you long term.

Speaker 2 (51:41):
They saved it by making that announcement that we showed,
But you don't have an opponent, you don't even have
the terms like is it for the PFL title? Like
couldn't you fix both masters by each of these tournament
cards having a main event that's separate where your actual
champion is defending. Give Johnny ebblin the middleweight belt and
have him headline the first one. Make Dakota Ditscheva defend
the one five title the second Usman and Maga mettof

(52:02):
back in the next, on and on and on, patchy mix, Okay,
now he's our bandam wait champion starting today. Shouldn't you
do that? And then say, look, also, these tournament cards
will produce the next title challenger at.

Speaker 1 (52:12):
The end of the year.

Speaker 2 (52:12):
That's exactly how you can you can serve both masters.
I don't want it to be all negativity and hate,
but I have one more negative thing. Let's watch this
meme here that somebody put together. Look, is this true?
Is this the coda ditch of on the PFL.

Speaker 1 (52:24):
That's a nice car.

Speaker 2 (52:25):
That's a nice car in that double wide trailer there.

Speaker 1 (52:28):
I think that that's a I mean, obviously it's a
little overstated.

Speaker 2 (52:31):
But will they be able to keep her happiest? The
real question, will they be able to keep her there?

Speaker 1 (52:37):
Okay, let me let me ready. Here we go, Here
we go. I'm going to look into the future. Yes,
And I'm going to use the fact that I've been
watching MMA for a very long time to understand and
see if I can look into my crystal ball here
Brian Campbell, and in my crystal ball, I see it. Okay, So,

(52:59):
so it's a I'm saying, it's a question of if
not when she goes to UFC. Sorry, it's a question
of when not if she goes to UFC. Now, that
could be a couple of years, it could be a
little while. I don't know how that's going to work.

Speaker 2 (53:10):
Are you're saying without saying that people like us who
feel like we're smart in the MMA business and we're
giving PFL free advice that even if Don Davis believed
our free advice, his key to survival is only going
this tournament mode. So even if they lose her, it
doesn't matter because, as you would say, the trains are
still going to leave on time. We're going to have
a tournament for every one card, and that's our only
way to survive financially.

Speaker 1 (53:31):
I'm saying that they're already in a very difficult environment
where if one dominant firm has a grip on relevancy
and you have no real way to wrestle that away
from them, you have to be really, really on your
on your game to have any chance of survival, and
they've handcuffed themselves to a content and program schedule that

(53:54):
won't allow them to do that. What is supposed to
be the reason that I think that they're going to
be around for a few more years other than and
they could continue to get money from venture capitalists. But
short of that, I like someone explained to me what
the math is called, Darren Owen.

Speaker 2 (54:07):
Just tip, just merge the GFL, the PFL, eagle FCMMA.

Speaker 1 (54:11):
What like, Here's what I'll say about this man. If
you're I mean, you know, I know a lot of
UFC fighters complain they don't get enough fights, and certainly
that can be true in certain cases. Yes, yes, they so, yeah,
you know, I'll talk to someone, they'll be like, they're
happy that they get the two that they get a year,
but a lot of them want three. Sometimes they even
want four. And that's where you get that that two
to three is where you see not a lot of

(54:32):
belly aching, but they would prefer it to be a
little more active. But then I would say, you know,
like look at the market outside of it. I mean
there's yes, if you're on the regional show, you know,
you can get seven fights in the year. It's very
very easy to get booked. But there's not much money
in that. Uh, it's these middling ones that are supposed
to be able to deliver for some of these people.
And with GFL or Bell Toork Gone one significantly producing

(54:53):
their MMA footprint, pfl's time is limited and GFL, like
a fart in the wind, just gone with the.

Speaker 2 (55:01):
Brig all right. PFL did have their third tournament card
at Universal Studios in Orlando. I'm not even gonna bring
up Ariel taken down Donald for Twitter. He did kind
of he did, kind of Scottie Pippa.

Speaker 1 (55:12):
The guy fucking walked into it. I know why was
he because by the way he went after Damon Martin
and then called him a clown and then edited his.

Speaker 2 (55:20):
Tweets and then it took seventeen times.

Speaker 1 (55:22):
Yeah, so he took that part out and linked.

Speaker 2 (55:24):
Brother.

Speaker 1 (55:25):
It's like, bro, do you like okay? You want to
go after the media because you think that they're mean
to you? Right, That's what's happening here. He wants to
go after the media because he thinks they're wrong and
he thinks they're mean. How the fuck is that gonna
fix your problems? Done?

Speaker 5 (55:38):
Done?

Speaker 2 (55:38):
We want you to succeed, Hey, don put the put
the camera on me. Done, we want you to succeed.
We fucking want more business. That's fun to watch. I
love Strike Force. I had a great time covering bullet
to or what the hell is going on here?

Speaker 1 (55:52):
All right?

Speaker 2 (55:52):
PFL three happened Friday night, Universal Studios, Orlando. In that
main event in the Middleway tournament Fabby and Edwards brother right,
brother of Fabian babian I, brother of Lean. He took
out a guy we know well, Impa kasangan A in
round two. Pretty pretty impressive t KO. Yeah, are you
looking at Fabian as a favorite in this tournament now?

(56:15):
Not looking that deep?

Speaker 1 (56:16):
Well, first of all, he doesn't typically get finishes, and
that was that was pretty good for him. Also, Impa is,
you know, not the best fighter in the world, but
a good test for most people. And he made a run.
Was it?

Speaker 2 (56:26):
Last year?

Speaker 1 (56:26):
He made a killer he won the won of the
million dollar tournament. When did he win one or two
of attorneys?

Speaker 6 (56:30):
I think one he won one he lost by knockout
last year.

Speaker 1 (56:33):
That's right, that's right. Yeah, but he made some He's
made good money. He's made good money, you know, certainly
given the state of the game. He occupies in the
plays in the game anyway. But Edwards, yeah, this was
a nice win for him, one of the better ones
he's had in his career. For sure. He looked good
doing it, So we'll see what happens.

Speaker 2 (56:47):
I did enjoy that for him. Also in that Cole
main event. This is worth talking about. We're in the
lightweight division in Dagistan's Goadzi Rabotanov. I had forgotten that
he had that great belatour run and then you look
at his page eleven and oh since twenty twenty, after
taking care of former UFC fighter Mark J. Casey in
thirty two seconds to make a huge statement about his

(57:09):
chances in this tournament and maybe being one of the
bigger hammers. I mean, look in eleven fight win streak
against some of the names. When you do look back
over the different federations that he's done it against. We
never talk about him, should we?

Speaker 1 (57:21):
We never talk about him because he was fighting guys
with no Wikipedia entries in Belatore.

Speaker 2 (57:28):
For a long time, decent guys, right.

Speaker 1 (57:30):
I didn't say they were bad fighters, they just were
not heralded. He was not winning heralded contests against big
name opponents. But now you're beginning to see him turn
that up. How old is he? Let me see here
very quickly. Robodanov is thirty one, so he's also in
this prime now smack in the middle of it. Wins
over Brent Primis, finishing him off in the third round.
Then Mark J. Casey Aaron the first looking to your point,

(57:52):
fucking awesome doing it, dude. Robodanov is ready to make
a move in this division. Take note, long Islan Luke,
your hardcore.

Speaker 2 (57:58):
Did you see anything else on this card that we
should be talking about.

Speaker 7 (58:01):
I got a shout out Aaron Jeffrey, who was like
the first fighter, the first cashed him as an underdog
plus one eighty, so that was nice. Josh Silvera going
over two and a half, that was also plus. There's
some good bets on this card.

Speaker 2 (58:13):
You're only speaking from a gambling standpoint.

Speaker 1 (58:15):
Apparently, Dalton Rosta to beating Sada, former champion. Yeah, yeah,
Dalton Rosta, first team all body You ever seen him? Yes,
looks like fucking he man when he walks out there.
He got a nice submission victory. By the way, another
Bellatoor over PFL Win Belatore.

Speaker 2 (58:32):
Had DoD They own PFL.

Speaker 1 (58:33):
I'm telling you about Scott Cooker, like there's there's good
things about Hi, there's bad things about him. Theirs successes,
he's had a promoter, there's some failures, but that dude's
ability over the course of time to develop quality talent
and from little places that you never imagined. You gotta
give him some credit. He's done really well. I remember
when the Shrike Force roster came over, people were like,
how good are they going to be? And then they
all end up becoming champions. You're like, pretty fucking good.

Speaker 2 (58:54):
That more reason to pay the bellatour guys and get
him back.

Speaker 1 (58:57):
Also, how about this we always think of like the
Kiwi fighters and the Aussie fighters is like Australians and
we don't know, we don't talk about any of the
ones outside of them. JJ Wilson, JJ Wilson beating Mads Burnell.
Mads Burnell solid the UFC very good veterans, stream Cuture
stream Coatur. JJ Wilson proper fucked him up. Yeah, like
JJ Wilson another belatore guy. Now also Mas was a

(59:18):
bell tour guy too. But be on the lookout one
of these Keiwi guys that you don't ever pay attention
to that because they doesn't fight the UFC, very very
good young talent.

Speaker 2 (59:28):
The coach Jonathan Coachman love that they're using him on this.

Speaker 1 (59:31):
Brother the color got wiped out.

Speaker 2 (59:33):
Yeah yeah, I mean we're kind of seeing the same
guys in these tournaments.

Speaker 6 (59:36):
Year after he's lost like five of his last six.

Speaker 1 (59:39):
Now, hey, hey, he had.

Speaker 2 (59:40):
A run during the pandemic.

Speaker 1 (59:41):
Oka, he had a run during the pandemic. And you know,
you got to give that guy some credit. He shows
up to fight.

Speaker 7 (59:46):
He was funny as soon as he You know, you
beat the Pettis and the Jeremy Stevens of the world,
and then you just.

Speaker 1 (59:51):
Follow forgot that he beat Anthony Pettis, who was the
boxing prospect he wiped out.

Speaker 2 (59:55):
I forgot that too, but I remember the fight distinctly.

Speaker 1 (59:57):
Yeah, because some guy they were like they burnt. Oh
it was some former MMA fighter.

Speaker 2 (01:00:01):
Who did you fight Max Halloween?

Speaker 1 (01:00:03):
He bought Max Holloway, he got whooped on. Now now
I need to know who was the boxing guy who
he wiped out during the pandemic. Let me see here.
Oh yeah, here we go. So when was that twenty twenty? Yes?

Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (01:00:13):
Was it David Kaminski?

Speaker 8 (01:00:15):
No?

Speaker 1 (01:00:16):
No, no, because it was in.

Speaker 2 (01:00:19):
Maybe could have been late. It could have been early
twenty one too. I mean he had that run where
he was winning fights. He shouldn't have ever than they
should be featuring.

Speaker 1 (01:00:26):
In twenty twenty he beat uh Quaishan Toler. I don't
think it's that one. Raymond Guhardo, I don't remember. I
don't think it was that one, remember, And then it
was one in June twenty twenty was David Kaminski That
could be it, And the other one was larent Nelson.
I don't think on Maurice Williams and he lost four
in a row after that.

Speaker 2 (01:00:43):
All right, we're deep down a rabbit hole. Let's let's
pull it all right, let's pull it back in. Hey,
let's go to topic number three. Jake Paul a masterful
promoter in his own right with most valuable promotions and
also he boxes. Did you know that? But coming off
of his one sided victory over a fifty eight year
old Mike Tyson, we weren't waiting to see who the
next big name would be for Jake. Yes, he tried

(01:01:03):
with Canelo and Turkey. Ali Sheikh intervened. Yes, he seemed
to try with Tank Davis fres weird as that fight is,
but interesting, But also could they even make it? That
didn't happen despite their intentions. Now we have the details
of the announcement. It'll be June twenty eighth, It'll be
at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California. And by the way,
it's going to go head to head with whatever International
Fight Week in UFC three seventeen has to offer. The

(01:01:26):
opponent former middleweight world title holder Julio Saysar Chavez Junior
so Luke. Given the public's continued demand of fight a
real fighter. This accomplishes that like on paper, But we
do have to bring up the brutal fact. Chaves is
now thirty nine. He's just eight and six since twenty twelve.

(01:01:46):
He lost to Anderson Silva straight up in twenty twenty one.
He fought life and death with Uriah Hall last year
on a Jake Paul undercard. He's also had major drug
and mental health challenges and was I believe committed within
the last year and concerns from his significant other that
that he would take his own life. What's the single

(01:02:07):
best word, honestly to describe this matchup, d OA. It
wouldn't it have been great like three years ago before
I see there was Anderson fight was twenty twenty one,
if it was like after the Woodley fights and then
he stepped up to the Chavis former title holder level.

Speaker 1 (01:02:27):
Yeah, I mean, okay, so let's let's let's let's try
and let me just tell you where my head is
out on this one. BC. If we are talking about
Jake Paul the promoter and what he represents for boxing,
let me say this, Jake Paul and what he's done
for women's boxing is more than I've seen any other promoter.

Speaker 2 (01:02:47):
They make headlines almost daily.

Speaker 1 (01:02:49):
I mean Salida Promotions does a lot obviously with Clarissa Shields,
and they've been on They've been supporting Katie Taylor for sure.
For sure, there's been some other ones that I don't
want to forget that, there's other ones that I've done it.
But like in a short amount of time, the names
he's signing, the fights, he's trying to make the platform
that these fights are going on, because you remember, so
we're gonna get Katie Taylor and Manisano three in July,

(01:03:09):
right so Netflix, Netflix, Yes, yes, And by the way,
also like what he's done for American boxing. We should
answer a question, Oh, is Jake Paul bad for boxing?

Speaker 2 (01:03:18):
No?

Speaker 1 (01:03:19):
No, absolutely not in terms of getting relevant. When I
say relevant, I mean in terms of pop culture relevant
in pop culture, making pop culture moments. He's achieved that
for American boxing. He's trying to bring fights home.

Speaker 2 (01:03:31):
For the most part, he's been on like every network,
he's been on every network. Fight he works with other promoter, He's.

Speaker 1 (01:03:36):
Signing women in ways that like again just many most
other promoters are not doing. Like when it comes to
what he's done for boxing in that sense and as
an energizing force as a promoter. Two thumbs up for me.
For Jake Paul, I give him real credit. And I'm
gonna say this with total sincerity. I'm grateful that he's here.
I mean that, I mean that absolutely. It is great

(01:03:59):
that a young guy who's got big dreams, big ambitions,
big dollars, balls too big kohonas and is trying stuff
as a promoter and as a force in this game
is exactly what the game needs right now. I'm grateful
for it. I mean that's total sincerity. But who gives
a fuck about this fight? Seriously, I'm not even trying

(01:04:19):
like this is what I'm trying to tell to people, Dude,
what is the argument for watching another fight? That means nothing?
They are at best, at best boring, these Jake Paul fights.
They are at best boring and at worst I'm not
gonna say a scam in the sense of like you
know it's it's fixed or something, but you feel dirty
when it's over. What is the argument for watching that? Brian?

Speaker 2 (01:04:43):
No, Look, this is name only your buying chov is
his name, But like anyone with half a clue could
read off the same stats I did, or at least
know that this guy's damage goods Now in some degree,
he has to be damaged goods for this fight to
make sense, Like we get what this is all about.
He's just super damaged. So I ask you, from both
a storyline standpoint and even from a necessity standpoint, if

(01:05:06):
this was Tommy Fury and they seem to be talking
over Twitter and arguing if this was the rematch, Jake's
only lost, the only time Jake fought a quote unquote
real fighter, even though Tommy's kind of a reality star
turn fighter. Would that have been fine? Would that have
been okay? You're going back to try to right the
wrong of your split decision. Lost the only loss of
year career.

Speaker 1 (01:05:23):
That would be bad boxing, but it would at least
be a situation in my mind that you could expect
to be reasonably competitive for where he's at. And I'm
not trying to diminish his journey as a boxer. What
I'm trying to say is he can fight whoever he
wants to fight, and again, as a promotional entity, I'm
grateful for his presence. Make the argument as a fight fan,

(01:05:44):
somebody who watches fights for a living or spends any
If you're just a fan, you don't work in the industry.
Somebody who spends a lot of their time and their
money paying for stuff like this. What is the fucking argument?
We have seen this movie before. He's made a lot
of progress, but is ultimately not that great, and he's
taking on another hand picked opponent who is a corpse

(01:06:08):
of relative to what.

Speaker 2 (01:06:09):
He wants in, a history of quitting, a history a
history of.

Speaker 1 (01:06:11):
Quitting, who's clearly looking for a payday, who clearly has
had troubled times.

Speaker 2 (01:06:15):
Is in good shape?

Speaker 1 (01:06:16):
Fine, fine, Fine, I'm sure he's in good shape. What
is the argument about why that is must see TV?
It's the opposite of that. I can't do another fucking
Jake Paul fight cycle where I'm expected to launder what
he's doing with like this narrative of you know, up
from the bootstraps. I'm trying my best, dude, I don't
give a fuck anymore.

Speaker 2 (01:06:36):
So here's the deal. If the Tyson fight didn't just happen,
I think we would be more forgiving on this. We
would go, Okay, you're cherry picking a name, but at
least it's a name, it's a former chan dude. Sense No, No,
the Cruiser fight no. I think coming off of the
Tyson fight where that was clearly like no, almost pro
wrestling of like, let's make this money together. This you
can't accept, we can't accept this.

Speaker 1 (01:06:57):
After the Mike Perry fight, I was like, I can't
do this here yet.

Speaker 2 (01:07:00):
From an entertainment standpoint, it's like.

Speaker 1 (01:07:02):
Did he beat up Mike Perry? Was it? You know,
one side in that sense, but like, this is what
I'm getting at. In order to make it exciting, he's
got to be have like a like, you know, total
dominance over a guy. And on the other hand, he
had total dominance over Mike, but he did he had mercy,
which was like the worst of all worlds.

Speaker 2 (01:07:19):
This was Casi.

Speaker 1 (01:07:20):
Would you have cared?

Speaker 2 (01:07:20):
That's like the one non traditional boxing opponent that people
seem to.

Speaker 1 (01:07:23):
Again, it's a situation where like is that for me?
Probably not, But I think that's a better matchup in
terms of skill level, and I think Jake beats him
by the way from what I can tell anyway, But
just like asking me to spend another media cycle, what
are Jake's chances how good is he. This is kabookie
fucking theater. Let me bring it. It's all one less thing.

(01:07:44):
It's all again. I'm not saying that the I want
to be clear. I'm not arguing that the result is
they figured out ahead of time. That's not what I'm saying.
But you know, in picking an opponent this languid and
picking an opponent this ready to be picked off, you
know they're setting up an obvious outcome here. Why am
I supposed to dignify that anymore? I've seen this movie already.

(01:08:06):
I don't give a shit anymore.

Speaker 2 (01:08:08):
I'm not far from that. By the way, let's hear
somebody's gonna try to argue and sell this, and one
of those somebodies is a big key to the storyline.
This is a co promotion with Oscar de la Hoya
and Golden Boyd Promotions. It will be a design pay
per view, not a Netflix show, but still should drive
some demand and to help it from a actual boxing
percent perspective, I've got to actually applaud them. The Coleman

(01:08:28):
events pretty damn awesome. Gilberto Zerto Ramirez, your unified cruiserweight Champion,
will defend his WBO and WBA titles against two time
former champion Uniel Dordicos cool Ranch himself. That's a hardcore
fight fan only I get that, but that's a pretty
badass actual fight. So, Luke, am I trying to connect
too many tea leaves? When I say, if Jake was

(01:08:51):
recently arguing to try to fight Canelo, which he was,
then he was publicly campaigning for Anthony Joshua, which he was,
you could say to yourself, Okay, Jake's future is probably
more in promoting that it is fighting. This would be
at least him cashing himself out the biggest way possible.
If he couldn't get aj and he couldn't get Canelo
and couldn't get Tank. Are they setting up for if

(01:09:12):
Jake beats Silva and Zerdo defends in the co main
event Jake beats, that Jakes would fight I'm sorry Jake Chavez,
that Jake would fight Zerdo Ramirez for the unified cruiserweight title,
and I guess, in a sense cash himself out. But
also take the chance that people have been criticizing him
for so long, even though he only has eleven or
twelve fights, Take that chance of, like I'm gonna try

(01:09:32):
to be legit is that where we're headed.

Speaker 1 (01:09:34):
I don't think we should ever assume that until he
gives you a reason to assume that, And to this
point he's given you absolutely no reason to assume that.
Everyone wants to like, oh, look the other way on
this fight and then the next fight, and then the
next fight and then the next fight, because Aha, there's
a nobility to the greater journey, And to the point
you raised BC, perhaps there is. Perhaps by the way

(01:09:55):
Zerdo fight would be a very real fight in fact,
that would be actually worried about Jake Paul In that case.

Speaker 2 (01:09:59):
Yeah, Zerdo would be favored heavily to would probably fuck
him up.

Speaker 1 (01:10:02):
But but but there would be real nobility in that fire.

Speaker 2 (01:10:06):
And there'd be entry intrigued to see Jake try to
hundred percent.

Speaker 1 (01:10:09):
So if I'm not gonna say he won't do that,
bec but until he actually takes a meaningful step in
that direction, to me, all of this is just a
big circle he's going in. Or you're just trying to
satisfy the same demands you were trying to satisfy the
last time. The easiest opponent with the biggest name that
you can you know, there's a very little chance they
can do anything to you. Why am I supposed to

(01:10:30):
care about that? Why am I supposed to care about
an opponent who can't do shit?

Speaker 2 (01:10:34):
Ask De la Hoya is here to tell you why.
He is the co promoter of this event, and he
talked to Marco's Vegas to Fight Up TV about why
this fight matters.

Speaker 11 (01:10:41):
So imagine if Jake Paul can hurt or even wobble
Chivis Junior, it's something that Connelo didn't do or couldn't do.
So Jake Paul who goes Chives Junior. It's a real fight.
You know, people keep talking about Jake Paul while he's
not a real fighter this and that. While he's fighting
a real fighter now and who does our chive is, Julie.

Speaker 2 (01:11:00):
It's gonna be a good test for both guys.

Speaker 11 (01:11:03):
Obviously, Jake Paul, he's a masterclass promoter and what he does,
he's been doing some great things. I mean, Mike Tyson,
sixty million people, uh fighting Judos Sesar Davis Junior, who
when he trains, when he gets in shape, when he's focused,
he will be dangerous for anybody. Look, Connelo Oliver is
fought Judosesar Charvis Junior.

Speaker 2 (01:11:24):
We promoted that fight many years ago. They didn't knock
him out, couldn't hurt him.

Speaker 11 (01:11:28):
So imagine if Jake Paul can hurt or even wobble
Chavis Junior. It's something that Connelo didn't do or couldn't do.

Speaker 2 (01:11:36):
So I know that's the hook for the promotion, but
that's fricking laughable. I'm not gonna say there's not intrigue.

Speaker 1 (01:11:41):
See Jello beat him one twenty one o nine, I know, and.

Speaker 2 (01:11:44):
Chavis was weight drained and he didn't even try. I
know he didn't get finished, but he didn't even try,
Like you know, he was just there to collock the paycheck.
It's laughable what Oscar's doing. But as Oscar says, you
can talk shit as long as you're telling the truth.
He wasn't telling the truth there, Luke, there is some
intrigue by the way, to see what Paul look like
against Shaves. But did you saw Shaves against you rye
Halt last year? Dude, Like no, he's he's on this

(01:12:06):
YouTube level. So I mean, like there is a world
where this actually is oddly competitive, and that'd be bad
for Jake in a lot of ways, But I don't
think there's a world that unless it's a war and
Jake survives and knocks him out late triumphantly, where Jake
actually proves what he's setting out to do right, or
do you think Jake doesn't even care about that it's
only about money on this fight.

Speaker 1 (01:12:23):
I think Jake has been very clear that this is
principally about getting money for him.

Speaker 2 (01:12:29):
And not so much about proving.

Speaker 1 (01:12:30):
Look, I'd be a real which is why it's like, again,
if people want to watch it, if people want to
pay for it, fine, I like, do whatever makes you happy.
But it's just as like I get the point you made,
just get made these questions.

Speaker 2 (01:12:44):
See shaves. Let's see the shape that he is in.
I did see him ringside at the tank Roach fight,
and he looked surprisingly like very thin and in healthy
at least. But you know, he's thirty nine, he's plotting,
he's slow. He does have a certain level of technique.
But if Anderson Silva was able to to outclass a
better version of that, and then Jake had a competitive
fight with Anderson, I guess maybe this could be entertaining

(01:13:07):
at best, but it's not.

Speaker 1 (01:13:08):
There's a possibility where it could. But it's just you
have to ask yourself why. Just ask yourself, Okay, b see,
let me ask you why is Jake Paul making this fight?
Answer that question is, honestly, why did he make this fight? Money?

Speaker 2 (01:13:20):
Stay busy? And to further the argument that if he
is going to fight somebody like a zerdo next, Look,
I just beat a former champion at least still be
able to say that.

Speaker 1 (01:13:27):
Okay, but that's all like what you're saying, it's right,
You're just basically arguing he's trying to get an opponent
that has something in the line item of his resume
that he then can then claim for some kind of
again greater nobility cause. And I'm like, I don't know
that this leads to a greater nobility.

Speaker 2 (01:13:43):
Too bad that he didn't get this a couple of
years ago, where it actually could have mattered to a
certain degree in his story arc. But we don't have
to play it. But he tweeted about Jake did about
this fight, and he got community noted for trying to
say that, for trying to say that the Jake would say,
five years ago, I stepped in the ring. He had
you know, I had a good story about stepping up
against a real former champion and selling the fight. But

(01:14:04):
I think we have the community. Note here where they
say Jake's claim of Canelo who Canelo could barely be?
As you said earlier, Canelo dominated Chavez one twenty to
one away on all three scorecards in a real huhm
pay per view event that was what May of twenty seventeen.

Speaker 1 (01:14:20):
I believe, yeah, twenty yeah, yeah, again. I'm glad. I'm
glad you Paul's a promoter, but I've seen too many
bad Jake Paul fights to get excited about the next one.
Thank you, sorry, thank.

Speaker 2 (01:14:31):
You very much. Let's go to top before we get
to topic number four. Luke, we have fantastic partners that
we should be talking to.

Speaker 1 (01:14:36):
Yeah, we staly do, okay.

Speaker 2 (01:14:37):
And when I'm talking about that, I'm talking about talking
about I'm talking about our friends over at say it, Luke,
Gold Belly, Gold Belly, That's what I'm talking about, Luke.

Speaker 7 (01:14:47):
What what?

Speaker 1 (01:14:47):
Luke?

Speaker 2 (01:14:48):
Why don't you talk about it? While I find this?

Speaker 1 (01:14:50):
Well, gold Belly, Here's how it works. It's a fantastic company.
Let's say you wanted some kind of delicacy, some kind
of special deep disc peacha from Chicago, some kind of
special kind of the thing that they make in Philly,
or we're at anywhere in the country. But you're like, well,
I don't live there. How do I get that delicious
iconic dish delivered to my house? PC One thing you

(01:15:12):
could try, for example, the Magnolia Bakery bread excuse me,
banana pudding. It's tremendous.

Speaker 2 (01:15:16):
You know, that'd be good for Mother's Day.

Speaker 1 (01:15:18):
Mother's Day. So this is my point. You order from
them and they send it to you, and it's like
the most iconic American dishes. Who wouldn't want it?

Speaker 2 (01:15:26):
And who doesn't like when they sprinkle on top and
say they'll ship it anywhere across the country for free
in time for Mother's Day. So it's sort of like
an instant party, whether you're celebrating a Super Bowl party,
a birthday party, Mother's Day, whatever it is, you get
this delicious food luke packaged, perfectly kept cold, with all
the fictions, right in your mailbox, right on your front doorstep.

(01:15:47):
And it's very easy. And that's the thing for me,
I'm not a good cook. It's very easy to cook,
but it's top shelves taste, it's great stuff, it's gold Belt.

Speaker 1 (01:15:53):
Yeah, and again these are might be places that you've
eaten that really mean a lot to you, or again,
special dishes or things you've seen on the internet even
and you wanted to try. Hi, and I'm glad you
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that goes into the packaging, the level of detail that
goes in to make sure your experience is curated the
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(01:16:14):
going to do, bc they do.

Speaker 2 (01:16:16):
So, whether your mom would love something sweet, whether she
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service area monthly rate on the Total Base five G
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website for details. Thank you very much. Look back to
our countdown of topics here we slide gingerly here into
number four. Hey, big time boxing card got announced by
Mike Coppinger of The Ring, who certainly probably had great

(01:18:22):
intel because Turkey Ala Sheik's Ring magazine series, which will
debut this weekend, by the way, with that Connor Benchris
Ubank fight in London and then also May second on
Friday in Times Square, we get that huge Ryan Garcia
supercar with Devin Haney so many other big names, But
how about this one night after Katie Taylor and Amanda
Serano will fight on Netflix in New York's Madison Square

(01:18:44):
Garden in their historic trilogy. Turkey Alashik will have a
date a show the following night, Saturday Night, Saturday Night,
July twelfth, exclusively on his Zone, although it has not
been decided to defuly be a pay per viewer not
but it will be at quote an iconic location still
to be determined, and the event will coincide with the
launch of Turkey's new Inside the Ring TV show. Let's

(01:19:05):
put up the card here and break down the matchups
and get Luke's reaction to this. In that main event,
Edgar Berlanga will take on Hamzas Shiraz, who is moving
up tow one hundred and sixty eight pounds and has
a new trainer, Andy Lee. After that controversial draw with
Carlos Damis and Shakhor Stevenson, after originally in recent weeks
being on the outside and accusing Turkey of not paying

(01:19:25):
up what he promised, he will get that fight against
this WBC lightweight title mandatory Williams of Beta. And you
have PBC's Alberto Poeo who will defend his title in
the WBC at one forty against former champions Sabril Mattias.
That's a hell of a fight right there. And how
about David Morrell Junior of PBC Fame. His first fight
since the pay per view loss to David Benavitez in January,

(01:19:45):
he will take on Imam Katiev, who is a ten
and zero slugger from Russia. Luke, here's the deal. Three
fights into this ring magazine series, which is presumably, according
to Turkey, paid for out of his private equity and
not connected to riodd Sisson or TKO. At the moment,
what should the fan response be for what these ring

(01:20:06):
magazine cards are providing in terms of matchmaking and value.

Speaker 1 (01:20:09):
Up to this point, it seems to me that these
are quite good. These are not main events with bullshit
behind it. They are cards. They are real cards. As
you indicated in the Connor. The Connor Ben and Chris
you Bank is a little thinner relatively speaking.

Speaker 2 (01:20:29):
Huge grudge match also focused on the UK.

Speaker 1 (01:20:31):
Exactly, and it's the first they're kind of you know,
rolling it up. But to the point you raised the
one in Times Square is three good fights. That sets
up potential for more, right, because you have Hany and
you have Ryan and also you got kind of Rollly
hanging out there Will Rolling and Ryan in the same fight,
but you know, you have different winners and different permutations
that it makes it possible. So it's not just like
you're burning something and you get nothing out of it

(01:20:51):
and then you have this one which is nothing but
great fights. Now, you couldn't nitpick Brian Campbell. You couldn't nitpick.
You could argue should shakhor Stephenson Tiams paid to be
the main event? I agree with you, as it's the
more important fight, but they might be Well, the thing is,
why wouldn't they do that? Are they borrowing? Already? The
UFC model of the heavier fight goes up top.

Speaker 2 (01:21:12):
Now I'll tell you what I think it is.

Speaker 1 (01:21:13):
Okay, what do you think of this?

Speaker 2 (01:21:15):
Sharaz is a big Turkey fighter. Do you remember Ali
Sheik controversially went in his corner and the Damas fight
gave the scoring or what he thought the scoring was
in that position. H That was a tough fight for
him against the Damas at one sixty for the title
because it showed his limitations. Now he's moving up to
sixty eight, He's got a new trainer and Andy Lee.
There's a lot of expectations and the inside sort of
rumor is if he wins this fight against Berlanga, who

(01:21:36):
is a star. You got to give him that right,
whether you love him or hate him. He could be
a next opponent for Canelo Alvarez, who, by the way,
has four fights locked up with Turkey. The first we
expect to be Terrence Crawford this fall to kick off
the TKO, but what if it was Canelo against Shiraz
next year? Either way either way. But look, a big
part of this is we weren't sure what Turkey's next

(01:21:58):
few cards after what this may second one would be
given that he's announced the partnership with TKO and now
he's pulling back the PBC. He put out a picture
with him in Louis to Quibus Junior, so he's working
with more people, which is good to see, certainly. But
the interesting development here is that Shakhur Stephenson was on
the outs and then he put out this tweet which
seems to change the narrative. He said, excited about my
next fight. It was a misunderstanding between Turkey and the team.

(01:22:20):
My apologies on my part for overreacting. Can I read
the original Let's work Turkey. What's the original tweet?

Speaker 1 (01:22:27):
The one he put out that probably caused the problem. Yes,
he put out a so de la Hoya basically said,
Shaquer's ducking So Shaker quote tweets it and writes, is
that what they told you talking to Dala Hoya, Turkey
promised me a number and now he's going way back
on that number that he promised me and sending his
towel boys. We talked about this now again. I think

(01:22:48):
that meant like Erond got children, okay, sending his towel
boys to run me the info instead of telling me
straight up what he's trying to do. I don't bow
down to nobody, mister de la Hoya, Now, let's negotiate.
That was the one that I'm defiant and all of
a sudden not defined. I mean, here's what I think
is happening.

Speaker 2 (01:23:05):
Well, let me let me add the one wrinkle to
this before you react.

Speaker 1 (01:23:07):
Sure.

Speaker 2 (01:23:08):
The big news associated with this is that Stevenson was
promoted by Eddie hern and Matrium Sport. There was an
understanding that there was one to two fights left on
the deal. According to Dan Rayfield, Fight Freaks you unite
in a few other outlets, They're now split. Eddie Hearner
is no longer promoting Shakhor Shakur and manager James Princess
called Lou Debella to be sort of a one off

(01:23:28):
promoter for this event, and then Shakur would be a
free agent. Then you got people like Rick Laser, who
puts a lot of misinformation out there, did tweet out
that Eddie Hearn is officially on the outs with Turkey,
which is interesting. That adds to this whole thing with
your core.

Speaker 1 (01:23:41):
Yeah, it does. I mean here's what I think. Well,
it's not just with your corp. It's like, what Turkey
is trying to do? Are these cards reasonably well matched?
Is he pulling from a lot of different parts of
the talent pool to make that? Are some of these
other actors operating It seems like in good faith to
make the best cards available. Sure, but let's just be
honest about what's happening here. Turkey is probably trying to

(01:24:01):
line up as much talent as he can with as
much ease in the future to serve his business interest
with TKO. That's interesting. I just don't see how this
is anything but that. It's like, Oh, he's signing these
brand ambassador deals, the ones you raised, Oh Lovedilla Mason
when he.

Speaker 2 (01:24:18):
Did five of them last week, and the three biggest
ones are the top ranks future stars, Abdula Mason, Keishawn Davis, Bruce,
Shushu Carrington, Like, why would he do that? All three
or on beat? And all three are?

Speaker 1 (01:24:28):
You know?

Speaker 2 (01:24:28):
Kishaw's a champion, the other two on the verge of championship.
I mean, he's building very strong relationships with shaping them.

Speaker 1 (01:24:35):
Again, I don't know, this is not a declaration that
if he does those things it will lead to them
signing over time. I don't think that that's necessarily a
one to one relationship. But it seems to me that
these cards, at least in the interim, are are Listen,
It's the same thing we've been saying about the Saudis
the whole time. If I look at their cards, are
we getting cards that are excellent? Are we getting good fights?

(01:24:56):
Are we getting meaningful fights that fans want to see?
There is simply no question that you are. But it's
all in service to a bigger, broader purpose. This idea
that like everyone tweets him, or excuse me, everyone treating
Turkey like he's this avuncular figure in your life who's
just there to do good. It has no alterior motives.
You can like or hate those alterior motives, but to me,

(01:25:18):
this is all in service of this grand vision that
he has.

Speaker 2 (01:25:21):
What do you make about Eddie Hearn in this case?
Now I don't I don't know if that's confirmed, but
it does seem to be confirmed that him and Schakor.
I don't know if they cut ties or or if
they just ripped up the deal or whatever, but it
does seem like Eddie's on Eddie because Eddie was the
strongest of the beginning when the Tiko thing was announced,
and I didn't agree with the timing and the way
they did it. But Eddie, you know, famously said, look,
I'd love to keep working with Turkey, but I'm the

(01:25:42):
best promoter in the world. I'm not dependent upon him.
Is this the future of that? Is this that playing out?

Speaker 1 (01:25:48):
Right? So let's see Burlanga left him, Yep, Shakor left him.
Who's the other one. I'm not thinking.

Speaker 2 (01:25:55):
Bevoll is with him, even though Herne promotes him. But
remember bevill was considering going to PBC and fighting Benavitez,
but instead drop the belt to stay with Turkey and
do the trilogy. So that's interesting. I think ed Hearn's
still his promoter. But that's interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:26:10):
Yeah, it just seems to me like I I don't
know who is pulling the reins back from who, but
these guys who are all like reading that there's riding
on the wall about the future of t K, I
think are trying to feather a nest for themselves and
some of that's going to lead to players going to
different bases, so to speak, on the on the Baseball dimes.

Speaker 2 (01:26:32):
Interesting stuff. We'll see what goes on. They did have
Terrence Crawford, by the way, at wrestle Mania, so he
got his TK O close up. You got yeah, got
a pretty good pop and I and I think we're
going to see him later this year against Canelo in
that stadium, So that would be a we're under the
understanding that TK is going to do what two to
four pay per views a year.

Speaker 1 (01:26:47):
I think they would probably want to do one quarter,
think of like think of like an all star version
of the Fox model four big shows year one of
the quarter, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:26:55):
And then they'll probably start whatever their prospect league is
going to look like. Right with maybe we'll see calam
Walsh and those likes on there. Let's go to topic
number five, even though the story in theory is a
little over a week old, there have been recent developments.
We're talking about the rise and very sudden fall of
the GFL. We joke and call it the Geriatric Football
League or the Geriatric Fight League. Excuse me, but the

(01:27:17):
Global Fighting League under Darren Owen made a lot of claims.
They had a format we didn't naturally agree with, with
teams in different cities across the globe. They bungled the
draft in which they exposed the fact that it wasn't
actually a draft, and you know the backstory. But one week, Luke,
after Darren Owen was forced to cancel the promotion's kickoff
weekend of back to back events in LA when an

(01:27:39):
investor pulled out of money at the last minute, it
seems the GFL founder continued to dig a hole in
subsequent statements to the media, including a text message to
uncrowned Ariel Hawanee, that have only furthered like the speculation
that the GFL was potentially fraudulent from the beginning. And
you have MMA manager speaking out got fighter Alan Belcher

(01:28:01):
straight up calling it a scam on Instagram. So, Luke,
in your opinion, in light of these recent comments. I
think Lloyd Pearson was one of those MMA managers who
reached out to Ariel and we saw a story and
m a junkie that really kind of showed a lot
of this And we can get into that, But first
and foremost, what really happened here? And is this promotion

(01:28:22):
ever going to have an actual event or was it
ever expected that they would like? Is this a dojah
coin scam that I didn't understand? What the hell is
GFL really?

Speaker 1 (01:28:30):
Dude? I don't I can't believe. I can believe that
we're here, that everything collapsed and that brought us to
this position. I get that part. I can't believe that
we there's this much interest in something that is as
obviously phony as them. I gotta tell you, I certainly

(01:28:55):
have sympathy for fighters who may have adjusted their preference.
Is I wanted to go with this promotion instead? I
signed with GFL because I was made a series of promises,
and these promises to me indicated that it was a
better choice for me and my family if they get screwed.
I certainly have a great deal of sympathy for them.
I want to be very clear about that. Like there

(01:29:16):
are potentially victims here in that sense, and it deserves
to be noticed.

Speaker 2 (01:29:19):
Oh, a lot of fighters turned down money with PFL,
for example, to take what was going to be bigger
checks with But.

Speaker 1 (01:29:25):
I would say, if you're a manager, I don't know
how much sympathy I really have for them to be
perfectly honest in this particular case. Now, I'm glad that
some of them have come forward to talk about some
of the issues that they're having, But it's like, how
could you ever advise your client that this was even
remotely real?

Speaker 2 (01:29:41):
How could you do something fool a lot of money do?
They promised a lot of money that didn't seem real.

Speaker 1 (01:29:45):
Hook we should talk about that. Certain fighters and certain
coaches were offered stipends, and some of that was delivered upon.
I understand that. But even with that, how could you
look at this place and the amount of money that
they they were offering to everybody else these gigantic paydays.
They had no broadcast deal, they had no real fully funding,

(01:30:07):
they had no real dates. And again I know they
claimed that they had dates and they moved them, but
for a long time they had no real dates. They
had this ham handed. The shob shop was one of
the best things about that thing. I mean, let's be
honest about that. Brendan did a great job. That they
had this ham handed draft and again a core concept.
I'm trying to be as delicate as I can be.

(01:30:28):
That simply cannot work. It's like, let's take the gamification,
this sportsification of the what PFL is doing, only at
a higher degree, we'll do it even more. That is
a doa fucking concept.

Speaker 2 (01:30:41):
I have a theory though, that cuts into them. I
want to show the facts first.

Speaker 1 (01:30:44):
Okay, a littlek at the facts. There's a bunch more
I want to say about this.

Speaker 2 (01:30:47):
On April ninth is when we found out this was canceled,
and then Darren Owen gave some text to Ariel Hawani
to sort of explain that here was the original text
that said working on a solution. My main investor didn't
fulfill his April obligation, which has caused a problem. I'll
keep you posted, but I believe we'll be able to
work through it. I think we can make it happen
for June. Additionally, I don't foresee the event taking place
in California, but we absolutely will keep pushing forward. I

(01:31:09):
think we're going to have to push the dates to
June fifteenth or sixteenth out the confirm asap. It's been
a frustrating week, but I think there's a solution in place.
Then we had Lloyd Pearson, the MMA manager, speaking to Uncrowned,
going in length, and here's some from that story that
MMA Junkie put out that Aaron Bronstadter tweeted out. According
to Pearson, According to this MMA Junkie story by Ben Folks,

(01:31:31):
Owen attempted to address concerns about the gfl's financial stability
by quote circulating copies and photos of the GFL bank
account showing that at one point they did have over
twenty million in funding. Let's go to the next slide, please,
that's only Oh you don't have the second hal it in.

Speaker 1 (01:31:47):
Front of me, okay, go ahead. Quote to do so,
he transferred twenty million into our bank account to prove
he had the funds, Owen wrote. He transferred the funds
out of the account the same day. We had a
monthly schedule of funds typically in the two hundred thousand
per month range. This is Owen talking about his main sigh.

Speaker 2 (01:32:04):
No one responded to the comments from Parson Jnson.

Speaker 1 (01:32:07):
Two hundred thousand per month range that he had been
funding without issue until April. Whether it was the market
crash or him getting cold feet, he did not fulfill
his April obligation and subsequently halted our progress.

Speaker 2 (01:32:18):
So originally Pearson, who had a bunch of his fighters
that were assigned to GFL, and a bunch of them,
you know, turned down opportunities. He gave this quote to Uncrowned.
At its inception, GFL came on the MMA scene seeking
attention by promising fighters large sums of money. Many relied
on these promises, and when GFL failed to deliver, now
the fighters have been financially harmed and forced to participipate

(01:32:38):
in prolonged fight camps for bouts that will now not occur.
He would go on to essentially accuse Owen of reaching
out to fighters and almost kind of pitching to them
an opportunity to still fight, but for free, I guess,
in hopes of attracting revshare of revshare, in hopes of
attracting the right investments. And the final quote there from

(01:32:58):
Pearson was GFL and Owen and began recruiting top level
fighters during the first months of twenty twenty four, offering
large financial purses and guaranteeing the ability to fight three
times during twenty five. Relying on these promises blah blah blah,
left so many fighters to financially hurting themselves. We can say,
what did you expect? Blah blah blah. But my theory
that cuts into this is I don't think it was

(01:33:19):
a scam that was never anticipated to succeed. But I
felt like when that shitty draft happened and they kind
of showed their hand and admitted afterwards, oh yeah, it
wasn't really a draft. We kind of just assigned based
on where the fighters live and made the teams. We
all had the same opinion of why the hell are
you doing a team format in twenty twenty five. You
have no chance to make it work. I think they
never had the investors. They maybe had some talking with people,

(01:33:42):
and they hoped that by using the draft as a commercial,
having Luke rock hold On there in an AI supermodel
or superhero costume, having interviews with Tyron Woodley and all
these former UFC names, that then all the people willing
to waste money and MMA would call up and say, yeah, man,
now I'm in I want I want to own that
New York team. That seems to me the only way

(01:34:02):
they thought this was going to work. And it does
feel sort of halfway. Maybe not fraudulent, but but gross.
If that's the case that they would roll out in
this attempt and make all the fighters do that, could
it be as simple as what's own saying that the
money was guaranteed and that wasn't there, Like, what do
you actually feel deep inside?

Speaker 1 (01:34:19):
Be real? First of all, twenty let me just say this,
I would love to have twenty million. Twenty million to
run the fight promotion is nothing, that is nothing. You
cannot do shit with twenty million.

Speaker 4 (01:34:28):
You can.

Speaker 1 (01:34:29):
You can be a very very small league and that
will save you. But to do what they wanted to do,
twenty million would get burned almost instantly. That is not
a lot of money at all of the in terms
of the people that they were signing for the amounts
they were trying to sign them for Bryan Campbell, twenty
million is is a drop in the fucking bucket. It
means absolutely fuck all. Moreover, if you have a budget

(01:34:52):
of two hundred k, you definitely don't have anything going on. Again,
for the names that you wanted to sign. You can
do a much smaller promotion with much small ambition and
that will last you a good long while. But that's
not what they were doing. This is the point, guys.
If you want to see a regional promotion that can
do well, look at what LFA does. They actually started
as two different promotions that merged, but they started very

(01:35:12):
very small and slowly.

Speaker 2 (01:35:15):
Built over time with the modelsc who you working with
that they are very cost conscious for that reason, and
they want to build.

Speaker 1 (01:35:23):
Slowly over time. Going the other way where we want
to go as fast as possible with like these exorbitant
price tags on everything with a concept that you know,
if you've been watching MMA for at least immoderate amount
of time, cannot work at all. This had red flags

(01:35:43):
from the moment I learned about it, them being like, oh,
down the line, it turned out their promises were bullshit.
How was this not the most predictable fucking outcome that
could have possibly befallen us? I cannot believe these managers
sitting here being like we we had no idea would
go this way.

Speaker 2 (01:35:59):
Some fighters left, you have se money on the table
to come there.

Speaker 1 (01:36:01):
How could you not know it was going to end
in blood. How cold you might have been able to
get one paycheck, maybe two at most. You had to
know this ended in blood. You had to know. We
knew it was going to end.

Speaker 2 (01:36:15):
In plus ferguson blood. That's the blood we thought.

Speaker 1 (01:36:17):
And I want to go a little bit further. You
mentioned it just to clarify what they were talking about.
By the way, according to Alan Belcher, after the initial
GFL event Cancelation, Oward offered him some quote rev share
and stuff that I would fight for, not a guaranteed purse.
With the apparent lack of funding for the GFL, Darren
is asking fighters to compete for free and again it's
a rev share, Pearson wrote. He has circulated a document

(01:36:38):
showing a revshare model for the fighters, a complete deviation
from their contracted amounts. According to some fighters, the GFL
is projecting to make almost four million from this event
at the low, and holy fuck, if they only lost
four million, I would be shocked to say that they
have a revshare model where they're going to make at
least four I mean, after all the gate and the
television and all the everything, you're gonna make four million

(01:37:01):
that you're out of your fucking mind to think something
so obviously fucking idiotic. Here's the biggest problem that we're
really not talking about, and it was central to the
PFL conversation as well. There just aren't enough opportunities for fighters.

Speaker 2 (01:37:15):
Is that because of the monsopsony.

Speaker 1 (01:37:17):
I know people get sick of this conversation, BC, I
know that we sound like a broken record, But eventually
GFL is going to be completely gone. One might stay
around as like a kickboxing organization that does MMA on occasion.
PFL does not have a long future. What are we
gonna say then to the middle classifighters Bellator's weak, excuse me,
excuse me, Bellatour's yearly outlay of fighter pay, Like all

(01:37:39):
the fighter pay they had to do in a year
top to bottom was forty million that just got taken
away from the market and didn't get put back in.
And trying to go to this fucking route is like
so obviously nonsensical. But if you've got really constrained options,
maybe you're desperate enough to just want to believe this.

Speaker 2 (01:37:56):
He said, what are we going to say to them?
We're gonna say twelve and twelve Campbell online one and
that's what we're gonna say to them, that's that's.

Speaker 1 (01:38:02):
That's that's, that's it. But I mean, I just if
you've been watching MMA for any amount of time, how
can you how can you say with a straight face
you couldn't see this coming. Jesus Christ, I could see
this coming. We talked about seeing this coming. It cannot work.

Speaker 2 (01:38:16):
I just feel like they used that. They were hoping
that draft was a hail Mary, that all these people
are gonna come and they're gonna get it, and they
were gonna get the money that they need to start
one card at a time. It feels like the tail
end of eighties wrestling when Vinc McMann went worldwide and
suddenly like the A w A and all these people
are dying slow death. It feels like the tail end
of that, only this is day one for them.

Speaker 1 (01:38:35):
Yeah, they just never got out of it.

Speaker 2 (01:38:36):
I mean, you're right, it is the it is the
industry crushing them. But it also was just poor.

Speaker 1 (01:38:40):
It's just was it fraud or is it just I
don't think. I think this guy just believes his own nonsense.
But the point I'm trying to make is, if you
see somebody trying to spend a fuck ton of money
up front for faded names like and we're talking like
a huge list of names which would have a huge
list of costs.

Speaker 2 (01:38:59):
Like of Turkey only did old guy fights.

Speaker 1 (01:39:00):
Yeah, yeah again under the weirdest nonsensical city system. The
fucking spidery tingles on the back of your neck should
have gone up right away that this can't work. Yeah,
it's the opposite. It's literally BC it's the exact opposite
of everything we know that works.

Speaker 2 (01:39:18):
At least we'll have those GFL draft memes for the
rest of our lives. In the video game costumes.

Speaker 1 (01:39:22):
That was very interesting, the AI fucking video.

Speaker 2 (01:39:25):
That's the thing we're gonna remember, right, or the or
the the fact that the day after the draft are like, yeah, sorry,
we accidentally leaked the results after the first pick it.

Speaker 1 (01:39:35):
Oh my god, I forgot about that too.

Speaker 8 (01:39:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:39:38):
No. I mean I feel bad for fighters who were
counting on a paycheck. I will always say that I
really am.

Speaker 2 (01:39:43):
And people, producers, camera, yeah, everybody, everybody who was.

Speaker 1 (01:39:46):
Counting on one. I feel bad for not the managers,
but I feel bad for everybody else. But I just
don't understand how people can be, like, how did this happen.
You fucking know.

Speaker 2 (01:39:53):
How anyone's actually saying that those are our five topics?
Thank you for playing? Now is the chance though, that
give you the chance to say you have yours? Say right?
Ask us a question. Every Sunday night at morning combat
on IG on the old X, we put out the
call to you. We call this one DMS from dogs.

(01:40:14):
I mean it's a disgusting sound.

Speaker 1 (01:40:16):
I am told. I am told that they're making new imaging.

Speaker 2 (01:40:20):
And new sounds too.

Speaker 1 (01:40:21):
Yeah, I'm told Long Island.

Speaker 2 (01:40:23):
Look who will voice the ejaculation on the new one?

Speaker 1 (01:40:26):
It's actually Gaff just saying let's say it's got to
be your dad. I mean, that's really all right.

Speaker 2 (01:40:32):
Hey, here's our first question from our fans. What do
you got to say? Let's see if they bring it
from con Man eighty eight and that's CONN with a K.
Who would enjoy their night the least? BC at Cannibal
Corpse or LT at a Burnt Chrys Slow show shirtless?
You have to be shirtless with Bert at that show?

Speaker 1 (01:40:47):
Yeah? Would I Actually the answer would be who would
enjoy their night the least? It would actually be b
C because if I had to go to a Burt
Chreiser show. I would just probably blow my brains out.

Speaker 2 (01:40:55):
You Mikey loves Burt christ You have to get you
have to respect his favorite song, his favorite movie time
is Armageddon, and he loves Burt Chrysler. Everyone has like
you know, you know, you know, everyone's got their things.

Speaker 1 (01:41:05):
Yeah, I got the arm Ageddon. I wouldn't call it
my favorite movie, but I'm not gonna hate on that.
I mean, that's a fun one.

Speaker 2 (01:41:09):
You love, Mikey. We'll let him have that.

Speaker 1 (01:41:11):
Yeah, listen, it's a it's a big action summer thriller.
I remember when Armageddon came out, but Burnt Chrysler, I
would just rather be dead. I'm being honest.

Speaker 2 (01:41:18):
I couldn't go to a cannibal corpse be rough.

Speaker 1 (01:41:21):
You know what I bought recently. I didn't even know
about these. Well, i'd heard of him, but I never
really looked into them. I bought the ear plugs, but
the kind like if you buy like sleep ear plugs,
they just muffle sound. Yeah, I got these new ear plugs.
They just take the decibel level and just lower it
so that it sounds basically the same, but you can
still hear the music. I got those because I'm gonna

(01:41:43):
see Cannibal Corpse on Wednesday, bitch this week?

Speaker 2 (01:41:46):
What venue?

Speaker 1 (01:41:47):
Uh? The MGM in DC at the ox Hill GM Facility.

Speaker 2 (01:41:50):
Yeah, oh wow, you're gonna have any chance to meet
the band, like maybe George Corps.

Speaker 1 (01:41:54):
Grinder that is it's the plan, that's the plan for afterwards.

Speaker 2 (01:41:57):
Do you know somebody in the band?

Speaker 1 (01:41:58):
I forget I do, Yeah, Eric, who's the guitarist.

Speaker 2 (01:42:01):
Guitar So he's not the guitarist that all the child
uh images? Right?

Speaker 1 (01:42:05):
No, I don't know if he had child images, he
had human skulls.

Speaker 2 (01:42:08):
In his Okay, yes, I think it starts with you know,
there's people in this world that have like glass cases
of snakes all over their house. I think that's that's
where it leads.

Speaker 1 (01:42:17):
To the skulls. They if you have snakes in your house,
the next step is dead bodies. Uh No.

Speaker 2 (01:42:24):
I hope you enjoy that, and I hope you do
get to meet the band. These privileges that we get
in life.

Speaker 1 (01:42:28):
They are boxing fan.

Speaker 2 (01:42:30):
There we go, there we go. Let's see the next
one from our great fans here at Jordan Peterson Peterson
with Holloway.

Speaker 1 (01:42:38):
Does he cry as much as Jordan Peterson. I don't
think so.

Speaker 2 (01:42:41):
With Max Holloway intending to move back up to lightweight permanently,
who should be who should Max be matched up with? Next?
A fight with Hooker would be dynamite. Well, look, we
feel like it's going to be proably way three. So
that's a great fight.

Speaker 1 (01:42:52):
I a lot. Max has options, Max has options.

Speaker 2 (01:42:56):
Overmatch you could do that. I mean, I can against Hoker,
that'd be what would you say.

Speaker 1 (01:43:01):
About Oliver versus sar Yuki? Sorry, what am I saying? Holloway?

Speaker 2 (01:43:06):
I never thought of that one. That's interesting, what.

Speaker 1 (01:43:08):
I mean, a lot of fresh, interesting matter, and that.

Speaker 2 (01:43:10):
Could give him a title shot earned, the title shot earned.

Speaker 1 (01:43:13):
But I think if you're Max and you know you
remember he lost the first two and then the third
to Volcan. He lost the first two to Dustin. Yes,
he's gonna want to get this one back. He's gonna
be the champion going in.

Speaker 2 (01:43:25):
Connor McGregor is seriously fing the UFC because even if
he's in shitty shape and is automatically going to lose
to every fights, he should have still given them two
to three pay per views over the last couple of years.
He's one I know, and one of them would have
been Max, And I feel like that would have been
a great rematch. It would sold, it would have been interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:43:41):
But we Max beating Justin Gaighee is pretty fucking redemptive.

Speaker 2 (01:43:45):
That was great, That was great. But I'm saying, like,
think of in all the arguments we're making about star
power and what fight is going to save this pay
per view, just old ask Connor showing up would save
a lot of it. They can't even get that.

Speaker 1 (01:43:56):
Yeah, true.

Speaker 2 (01:43:57):
Next question from the people, This one's from h m
z n a Q. Which current UFC fighter do you
think is the most underrated by both fans and the
promotion and why does it have to be both? I
mean there's some you can say that are underrated by
the fans that aren't underrated by the promotion. I mean
most are evloyev is super underrated. But you get why, right,

(01:44:18):
m hmm.

Speaker 1 (01:44:18):
You could say even Ian Garrett.

Speaker 2 (01:44:20):
I was just gonna say Ian Gary. But I wouldn't
say that the promotion underrats.

Speaker 1 (01:44:23):
Are the fan doesn't Yeah, the fans still do.

Speaker 2 (01:44:25):
Al Jo, Yes, yes, Aljos, Aljos always underrated.

Speaker 1 (01:44:30):
Ash, Yeah, that's probably fair, that's probably he gets.

Speaker 2 (01:44:33):
Critical recognition, but maybe it's how they treated them when.

Speaker 1 (01:44:37):
He was on top. So he dropped in the rankings
recently with some of the movement that happened after three fourteen,
I don't think he was very happy with that. So, yeah,
that's that's Aljo is a good one. Certainly some other
ones too, but yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:44:50):
Trying to think, I'm trying to think of one that
just fits this perfectly, Like who is everyone kind of
like sleeping on? Yeah, I wish I could say Brian
or Tago, but it's just not true.

Speaker 1 (01:44:59):
You know what Pantoja I mean, that's great. Hardcore fans
love him, but like he's way fucking better than he
gets credit for.

Speaker 2 (01:45:07):
I think is going to be just fine, and it's
going to be one of the great.

Speaker 1 (01:45:10):
Lumar Lumar has a bright future, you know. Listen, Rob
is going to be champion at least for a little
while longer, I think.

Speaker 2 (01:45:16):
I mean, DDP is finally getting the recognition and respect
even though he's unorthodox and lumbering and messy. But it works,
It freaking works. There you go, right there, I think
we got another one from these people. Let's see what
they say from a man in his cat I can
support that lifestyle. Who's a bucket list RSD guest you
would have to have, you would love to have have
Max Kellerman. We both said, fantastic Schwarzenegger, The Body Hunter

(01:45:40):
except for the N word, Dog, the Bounty Hunter, except
for the N word debacles.

Speaker 1 (01:45:43):
See alive.

Speaker 2 (01:45:44):
Yes, you're damn right he's alive.

Speaker 1 (01:45:46):
Are you sure? Yes?

Speaker 2 (01:45:48):
I know his wife died, yes, Beth yeah, RP No
for real in the sport. I mean Max Colman would
be very interesting. We both love that.

Speaker 1 (01:45:55):
I would love to When is he coming back?

Speaker 2 (01:45:58):
I don't know. I wonder if it's That's what I wonder.
Imagine him on Netflix.

Speaker 1 (01:46:02):
Could kind of bad us, right, good for good for him?

Speaker 2 (01:46:04):
I mean, Lampley's coming back on this Ryan Garcia card.
We'll see if that's for better or worse, right, I mean,
I support him, I give I want him to get
his shot.

Speaker 1 (01:46:11):
We'll see how that goes. Yeah, but for me, it's okay.

Speaker 2 (01:46:15):
If we had RSD back, and it's not out of
the question. We're building sponsorship relationships. We're coming back, right,
We're on the comeback trail, MK, But we still need
that studio with that couch. I got to add a
few names because that's what they're asking. Roly Romero. No,
Ryan Garcia, fuck no, I get why, But that's female.

Speaker 1 (01:46:35):
What is dude? Ryan Garcia is interesting to watch? He's
not interesting to talk to.

Speaker 2 (01:46:39):
All right, I just named everybody. Yeah, I think he's
interesting to talk to you because he's so. I think
it is.

Speaker 1 (01:46:46):
But we have very different rights.

Speaker 2 (01:46:48):
Who else in the combat space would be like a dream.
Maybe they came on of late, or maybe it's somebody
that we wouldn't have access to.

Speaker 1 (01:46:54):
But like, honestly, if they would be, if they would
even if they sparred with us, Don Davis, I'm telling.

Speaker 2 (01:47:00):
Dana White, Hunter Campbell, and any of those. Yeah, I
mean there's certain legends. Remember we sat down with GSP
briefly before the Anderson Silva Jake Paul fight we had
for showtime on the Way and Show. I'd love to
get GSP in that format, wouldn't you? Even though he's
always in our face on social media? I feel like.

Speaker 1 (01:47:18):
He's under Craig Jones.

Speaker 2 (01:47:21):
True, But isn't GSP to some under exposed to some degree,
even though he's always in your face, it's not a
it's not in a long term sit down deep sound.

Speaker 1 (01:47:30):
I'll just say this. You know that there's been generational
turnover in the fans when they start killing old legends.
So for example, there's a lot of aldo, hey, just
from donks who don't know what the fuck they're talking about.
And I see some of that with Saint Pierre.

Speaker 7 (01:47:41):
Two.

Speaker 2 (01:47:41):
People think I have although hit that's unnecessary and I
need to put them in the upper room table and
just show up and be a man about it.

Speaker 1 (01:47:46):
Yeah, well just wait. All you think is you think
Islam Makachev is going to be universally revered. Wait five years,
You're gonna get a bunch of fans being like a
cook that fraud, you know, Yeah, dumbasses.

Speaker 2 (01:47:58):
Who's the guy that knocked out Islam?

Speaker 1 (01:47:59):
I even for out his name, the Brazilian Doggiano Martinez.

Speaker 2 (01:48:04):
Yeah, there you go.

Speaker 8 (01:48:05):
There you go with that?

Speaker 2 (01:48:06):
Do we have another one from the people from von
Bechel Cal Did you guys do anything fun for Easter?
So Luke I didn't arrive home on my fight from
the West Coast until after midnight Saturday night, so this
was the most low key Easter we ever had. I
did the rundown for this show. I put together my ship.
I took a nap. That's about it for Easter from
me on the sacred holiday.

Speaker 1 (01:48:26):
I mean, we flew home yesterday and my daughter was very,
very cranky because her sleep was interrupted to make the flight. Yes,
and then we went home and.

Speaker 2 (01:48:36):
Nobody puts tookey in the corner.

Speaker 1 (01:48:37):
Yeah, I took her. I took her out from milkshakes afterwards.

Speaker 2 (01:48:39):
What a dad?

Speaker 1 (01:48:40):
Yeah, I took her from milkshakes. She loved it. He
loved it. So that was great. But we didn't do
anything super crazy. We were also tired. You know. It
was weird because we traveled with we we brought her,
we brought the grandma with us, and you know, it
was just a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:48:52):
That's what we're calling her out, the grandma Wela.

Speaker 1 (01:48:56):
Come on, you know. So she was great.

Speaker 2 (01:48:58):
Was a boil a date or is this conver station over.

Speaker 5 (01:49:02):
All?

Speaker 8 (01:49:02):
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:49:02):
Maybe the conversations over time. I mean, I'm not saying
it wouldn't happen, but like, all.

Speaker 2 (01:49:07):
Right, thank you for that inside too your life. Those
were the dms from Donks. You can join us again
on Sunday night and don't forget for this Friday's episode
for all episodes, or just to reach out to the
show Morning Combat at gmail dot com email address. The
great Mikey Momiles was on the end of that. But
do not, please do not show them a picture of
your package, your your dead wrongs, your fan subs. They
won't get red. Come original of this Friday. Bring it.

(01:49:28):
Let's bring it for good fan sub moments. We close
with really the best segment in all of combats. Whereas
maybe outside of High Court, I rewatched High Court, the
John Jones edition, maybe our finest piece of art we
ever put out.

Speaker 1 (01:49:41):
There, we never do that could have been so much
better too. We could have like that was like that
was like a prototype. We could have done a million
of those.

Speaker 6 (01:49:47):
Yeah, that true story. That was my first time working
with you guys.

Speaker 2 (01:49:50):
Oh my god, which your episode John Jones?

Speaker 1 (01:49:53):
John, did you think we were the dumbest people alive?

Speaker 6 (01:49:56):
I mean, I knew who you guys were before, but
I was like, what the fuck are we doing?

Speaker 1 (01:50:00):
Luke?

Speaker 2 (01:50:00):
How high? How high were you for court?

Speaker 1 (01:50:04):
Zooted brother?

Speaker 2 (01:50:06):
There was a Zoos suit.

Speaker 1 (01:50:07):
Riot going on. All right, a bottle you go.

Speaker 2 (01:50:11):
Our final segment is what I do every Sunday. I
go through all the dms. You guys hit me up
on ig with ridiculous videos meant to make Luke Thomas emo.
This one's called have you seen this shit?

Speaker 1 (01:50:28):
Who? Luke?

Speaker 2 (01:50:29):
We're less than two weeks removed from the return of
my favorite fighter, Rolando Romero, that comedic, dry humor genius.
So let's celebrate the holiday weekend with a look back
the last time we saw and heard from Roly.

Speaker 6 (01:50:41):
Happy Easter, everybody. I want to tell everybody, Happy Easter
and thank you for supporting me and following.

Speaker 2 (01:50:45):
Thank thank you. Really that was actually two fights ago
when Pipple sent him to Hell a year ago. But uh,
happy Easter to everyone from Roly. Speaking of Roie, Luke,
here's how he trains for cardio as he prepares for
Ryan Garcia. He trained for cardio. Uh fucked three times
a day. I fucked three times a day.

Speaker 1 (01:51:07):
Can I just say it's not even like I believe
that that's like a like, dude fucking three times a day.
That's a lot of work.

Speaker 2 (01:51:17):
That's a lot of I mean, Will Chamberlain was active,
you know, guy was active.

Speaker 1 (01:51:20):
I mean he's a pro athlet. I mean he's a
pro athlete. You know, he's a pro athlete. But to me,
it's like, you gotta do that sounds like a death sentence.
I gotta go fuck.

Speaker 2 (01:51:26):
Three times one point five women per day for.

Speaker 1 (01:51:29):
The math to work, to get the twenty k to work.
I don't do That's just I would just I mean,
I'm not I'm not advocating being an insult. That's even worse.
But like you know, three times in a day, that's
that's a little overcall.

Speaker 2 (01:51:39):
It's great work if you can get it though. Okay,
Rolly can also make it rain on the heavy bag
quite literally.

Speaker 1 (01:51:45):
Welcome to the weather forecast. What's the weather like there?

Speaker 2 (01:51:48):
Ly?

Speaker 1 (01:51:50):
Rain? Yeah?

Speaker 5 (01:51:52):
Rain?

Speaker 1 (01:51:52):
I think so one more time, just checking. Definitely rain. Okay,
thanks much appreciated.

Speaker 2 (01:51:59):
Look are you giving guy any chance against rat guy
who looked spectacular in those videos with with Derek James
James like those quick hooks he's showing in the footwork.

Speaker 1 (01:52:07):
It's I'll say this, it seems to me like Garcia
is significantly more sober this time around. And I actually
don't think that'll make him worse sactly.

Speaker 2 (01:52:14):
That's part of the analysis.

Speaker 1 (01:52:15):
But well, I mean, dude, a year ago was that fight?
What was the fight like a year ago? Yesterday? A
year ago. Yesterday, he was out of his fucking mind.
Remember he was in the club and the shirtless I
thought he was again all time, fucking over my face.
Quote he was gonna you know, we you know the story.

Speaker 2 (01:52:32):
Tune him like a guitar.

Speaker 1 (01:52:34):
One.

Speaker 2 (01:52:35):
Speaking of disturbing moments. I don't put this out to laugh,
but this was that BJ Penn video. Let's getting a
lot of attention. We'll just quickly look at it as scared,
he tell me if I because you know he put
Brendon shab On the same in putting Brandon job.

Speaker 1 (01:52:47):
I know Shop in the comments thought it was a joke.
He didn't know, and he put it.

Speaker 2 (01:52:50):
With Aaron Hernandez and of course it's gonna light up
the reddits and everybody had fun on the internet. But
you think BJ is literally saying that Aaron Hernandez is
not dead, he's just been repackedged as Brandon Shop.

Speaker 1 (01:53:03):
Dude, BJ, I know this is like a fun segment.

Speaker 2 (01:53:06):
I really brought down the mood.

Speaker 1 (01:53:08):
Yeah, he's in trouble mentally, all.

Speaker 2 (01:53:10):
Right, we got to cleanse the palate, alright.

Speaker 1 (01:53:12):
I don't want to say any more about it because
it's just a bummer. But he's in trouble.

Speaker 2 (01:53:15):
Let's let's watch this to cleanse the palette.

Speaker 1 (01:53:17):
Okay, the nurses saw it my birth.

Speaker 2 (01:53:23):
Okay, Okay, I mean he's not wrong, Luke.

Speaker 1 (01:53:26):
Okay, Johnny Walker, all right, let's.

Speaker 2 (01:53:28):
Check in on the Mexican restaurant, the old CANTEENA Luke
and I had a lot of this food in San Diego.

Speaker 1 (01:53:32):
Was great.

Speaker 2 (01:53:35):
Oh oh my go. Look he's just putting the sauce.
You know, you gotta love the sauce, right, you.

Speaker 1 (01:53:41):
Just do they Look he's got a bottle in front
of him.

Speaker 2 (01:53:44):
Yeah, he gets after it. Okay, it's he's done. Hey
Tom for your boxing k O of the Week. I
believe we ran this before, but like eighteen people sent.

Speaker 1 (01:53:56):
This white violence here. I'm all about it.

Speaker 2 (01:53:58):
Yeah, it can't be real fight.

Speaker 1 (01:54:00):
Is this one of those rough and rowdy joints or whatever?

Speaker 8 (01:54:03):
The fuck?

Speaker 1 (01:54:03):
I hope look at this turns around. Just fucking boom.

Speaker 2 (01:54:08):
Take that ray mysteria. Wow, Okay, Luke, this is a
This is cruel and unnecessary, but it's also funny. Let's
watch give me that microphone.

Speaker 9 (01:54:17):
Connor McGregor, I know you died of an overdose a
year ago and A're probably in hell, but that's nothing
compared to the hell I'm gonna drag you through when
you shot this sock to go on with me.

Speaker 1 (01:54:29):
By the way, my kids are black.

Speaker 2 (01:54:34):
That was Chandler after losing on the prelimbs in twenty
twenty seven. Oh gosh, Luke, is it's time for an
unfortunate flashback headline? Let's go to the eighties. This is
a real one from Rolling Stone magazine. Look at the

(01:54:55):
headline on the right, Luke, those.

Speaker 1 (01:54:56):
Summer nights, how magic stays positive? Yeah, I bet he does.
Plus OJ takes a stab A No, that can't be real.
OJ takes a stab in family life.

Speaker 2 (01:55:05):
I think it's all fake.

Speaker 1 (01:55:06):
But okay, I'm say, holy shit, they really got expressing.

Speaker 2 (01:55:11):
Let's head to the restroom, Luke, you sent me this.
This is actually Newark Penn Station's bathroom.

Speaker 1 (01:55:16):
I want everyone to know. This is tame. Oh yeah,
was there a murder in there? We don't know, can't Hey?
Look at this homeless guy just occupying Ah, there's look
at just just doing drugs over here.

Speaker 2 (01:55:28):
I changed trains in New Haven and I go to
that restroom every time, and it is it's rough in
that one. But it ain't Newark pen Rough.

Speaker 1 (01:55:34):
It's nothing. That's That's the tamst I've ever seen it.
I had a hundred people send me that video and
I tried to tell them all A was I lying?
Absolutely not. B I have seen it so much worse
than that.

Speaker 2 (01:55:46):
Remember that time I went there and I'm like, Luke
is talking shit, it's not gonna be that bad. It's
actually probably nice and historic.

Speaker 8 (01:55:52):
Dude.

Speaker 2 (01:55:52):
I got accosted by like four people upon walking through
the door.

Speaker 1 (01:55:55):
You can't if you stand in line at the Dunkin
Donuts or the Mickey D's at that place, the homeless
come right up to you.

Speaker 2 (01:56:00):
Oh do they? They messed with the people that worked there.
They started like it was it was.

Speaker 1 (01:56:03):
It was insane.

Speaker 2 (01:56:05):
Wow, all right, speaking of the restroom, Luke, I don't
advise this, but what are your thoughts, dude?

Speaker 1 (01:56:11):
What is wrong with the whites? Show that one again?
Show them one again, Show them one again? Dude?

Speaker 2 (01:56:23):
What would you wash his mouth off with carbohic acid?

Speaker 1 (01:56:26):
I wash it out with a shotgun.

Speaker 2 (01:56:28):
Okay, No, we don't advise. Wow, that is not necessary.

Speaker 1 (01:56:31):
I'm teasing. It's a joke. I don't mean it for real.

Speaker 2 (01:56:33):
Speaking of fatalities, it's time for your fatalities of the week.
Let's go to the bike ramp. Wow, dude, that was
like in Ghanu versus overring level. Okay, right there. Wow,
let's see an old guy in a bicycle.

Speaker 1 (01:56:53):
What do we got here? Not what I was expecting?

Speaker 2 (01:56:56):
See if he popped them A fucking popped that.

Speaker 1 (01:57:07):
Little I saw a bunch of those bikes in New Orleans.
I kind of want one.

Speaker 2 (01:57:12):
Oh wow, Well, look you are a great father in
New Orleans. And this guy had the same intentions, just
like R I P. Kobe Bryant before the helicopter, Luke, But.

Speaker 1 (01:57:19):
It always he going to sprain his ankle. Yep, yep.
Oh wow, now does your kid get concussed? You now
tore your a c l You.

Speaker 2 (01:57:29):
Found bonus, we have a scorpion of the week. People
like these videos?

Speaker 1 (01:57:34):
Yep? Oh all the whites due, I don't think you
can walk after that, right, seems so unlike them all right, Hey, Luke.

Speaker 2 (01:57:42):
Old people say the darnest things. Right, let's hear Grandpa
at the wedding.

Speaker 5 (01:57:49):
Here we go, Yeah, you know what and advertise.

Speaker 2 (01:58:02):
I mean that's what no cita should just embrace, right, embrace.
His dad's Australian nutbag. It's the reason why he's here.

Speaker 1 (01:58:08):
Okay, does his dad even know we talk about his
ball bag?

Speaker 2 (01:58:11):
I don't know. I'd love to get him on the
show just to talk awesome.

Speaker 6 (01:58:13):
He does not know the extension.

Speaker 2 (01:58:17):
Luke watched this Grandma keeping it one hondo?

Speaker 1 (01:58:21):
Is that a cigarette?

Speaker 2 (01:58:22):
Yeah, that's how she's lighting her Uh you know what,
God bless her. I mean if she's still smoking. She
made it to triple to just keep smoking.

Speaker 1 (01:58:29):
Right, why would you stop welcome.

Speaker 2 (01:58:31):
If you got him?

Speaker 8 (01:58:32):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (01:58:32):
Luke? Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:58:33):
Batman was spotted in La. Watched this in person.

Speaker 1 (01:58:36):
Let a person up there. It's an oh my Batman
something in signal me for anal.

Speaker 2 (01:58:52):
Hey, let's go to the schoolyard. Great fights happen outside
of cafeterias.

Speaker 1 (01:58:57):
All right, they're gonna squaring up here. Let's see what happens.
Everyone dressed in black with what the fuck.

Speaker 2 (01:59:04):
Got them?

Speaker 4 (01:59:05):
Right?

Speaker 2 (01:59:06):
That kid's never gonna live that down. He's gonna be
garbage pale life. No, but he got kao by it.
It had gross stuff in it.

Speaker 1 (01:59:13):
That liquid that came out, dude, the garbage can juice.

Speaker 2 (01:59:16):
Oh, God, I remember when Nick Claiber hit a freshman
in the air with a donut from like halfway across
the room. Like that kid's donut air for the rest
of his life. That's there, you go, right, Okay, look
it's time for your dunks of the week. Let's watch
the principle and high school principle went for a dunk
and this happened. That's a ko one, headfirst down. Oh,

(01:59:41):
let's go to Walmart for the next dunk. What I
can get behind this type.

Speaker 1 (01:59:49):
Of Okay, here's the thing. I'm not gonna say that
wasn't funny. It was funny, y'all. Don't be fucking with
the Walmart staff. Yeah. I know they got jobs. They
let them be.

Speaker 2 (01:59:58):
Let them be them, Luke, we do absolutely smoke them
if you got them time, Luke, you've ever heard of
a Glizzie bowl. This combines everything we love.

Speaker 1 (02:00:07):
If you use this, you deserve to be sent to
a prison camp. And I'll Salvador.

Speaker 2 (02:00:11):
I'm going to put that out long.

Speaker 1 (02:00:12):
Aunt.

Speaker 7 (02:00:12):
Look you're down with the pork bong or no, I mean,
it's better than the soda can bongs.

Speaker 2 (02:00:16):
I guess it could be a beef bong.

Speaker 1 (02:00:18):
Too. Yeah, there you go, or the toilet handle bong.

Speaker 2 (02:00:21):
Let's continue on. Do you ever hear of a frisbee bong?

Speaker 1 (02:00:29):
What the fuck is that?

Speaker 2 (02:00:32):
You can throw it to your friends past the dut
cheat to the left side.

Speaker 1 (02:00:35):
Actually support this now?

Speaker 10 (02:00:36):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (02:00:37):
Okay, I mean you got to have good hands though.

Speaker 1 (02:00:39):
In New York City brand too, so they probably sell
that ship. They make wraps and stuff. Right, Yeah, they're
a paper cup.

Speaker 2 (02:00:47):
We should play ultimate frisbee with that, or we can
just smoke a bong, Luke. Let's bring together two celebrities
and have them play touch butt in the park this time,
Rob devas Vili and Gable steveson your thoughts.

Speaker 1 (02:01:03):
Gable seems unimpressed.

Speaker 2 (02:01:05):
Do you think Gable will work as an mm A fighter?

Speaker 1 (02:01:09):
I mean, he's certainly got all the things you would need.

Speaker 2 (02:01:13):
You better work.

Speaker 1 (02:01:16):
They're just, you know, there's just kind of hand fighting here.

Speaker 2 (02:01:18):
A little real thing. Yeah, I don't know. There's nothing
else to say about this. They're just kind of at
the end. No, like there's no there's no pay, just
like the viewers hoping that one day Luke will bang.
We want to Tony and Angela okay please all right?
Uh Luke, Planet Fitness time you sent me this? In fact,
Luke Thomas original.

Speaker 1 (02:01:39):
Planet Fitness. Yeah, I'm Planet Fitness. Penis in my mouth
or in your mouth? I'm Planet Fitness. Uhs on your head? Okay,
that was me asking John Jones a question.

Speaker 2 (02:01:50):
Yes, yes, let's go to the end playoff time in
the NBA. Let's hear from Windhurst because obviously Luca, Lebron
and Austin Reeves can fit together beautiful wait and be
a competitive group, and they can share each other's load.
And also they can fit together. Look hashtag load watch.
That's what real friends do, all right, fire that clown?

(02:02:11):
Yes today, that's Lebron's caddy.

Speaker 1 (02:02:14):
Okay, apparently Lebron doesn't like you know, Lebron.

Speaker 2 (02:02:17):
Don't like that guy. No, he thinks their best Brian
thinks they're best friends.

Speaker 1 (02:02:20):
Luke.

Speaker 2 (02:02:21):
Finally, uh, do you do you believe in proper etiquette
when when walking your dog? Like, there's some people that
propert is this? Okay? Is this too far in your eyes?

Speaker 7 (02:02:30):
Oh?

Speaker 6 (02:02:30):
Do you mind if here dog say high?

Speaker 8 (02:02:32):
Oh?

Speaker 7 (02:02:32):
Yeah, awesome? I they like each other on their friends.

Speaker 1 (02:02:40):
Execute both of those disgusting creasures that turn you on
and all I hate them both.

Speaker 2 (02:02:44):
Okay, that's the ship of the week. I hope you
saw it well. I think I think we gave it
to him, for.

Speaker 1 (02:02:49):
We didn't have much to work with. No, no, we had.
We had to turn in the words of brock lesnar.
We had to turn chicken shit into chicken salad, just.

Speaker 2 (02:02:56):
Like our sexual history is not much to work with.

Speaker 1 (02:02:58):
But we Uh, I did all I did. I didn't
do great. I did all right?

Speaker 2 (02:03:01):
All right, I just volume way too loud. All right,
there we go. Sorry about that. That's the show for
the week. You can email the show at Morning Combat
at gmail dot com. We told you about that. Also,
here are our social accounts if you want to follow
the show or follow us, including on our personal YouTube
channels where the parties only continue each week. Also check
out the main card minute with One Luke Nosita are

(02:03:23):
fantastic director, producer, bong enthusiasts Long Island. Luke, Can we
expect content on your YouTube channel this week?

Speaker 6 (02:03:30):
Yeah, I'll have the bet breakdown for Kansas City today,
Longer One tomorrow, and you know I'll be.

Speaker 2 (02:03:35):
Doing the watch Long It's Ian Gary fight. We come on,
let's go.

Speaker 1 (02:03:38):
I'm to prove the haters wrong. Main event's going to
be great.

Speaker 2 (02:03:41):
It's damn right.

Speaker 1 (02:03:42):
Car's gonna be pretty good.

Speaker 2 (02:03:43):
Are you into you Bank versus Ben as well?

Speaker 7 (02:03:46):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (02:03:47):
Yeah, yeah I am. It's it's gonna be It's gonna
be a fun build it. It has been, and I
think this week will be kind of kind of cool,
all right, for all of.

Speaker 2 (02:03:54):
Our great people that work back there, including Kennan Nader.
Shout out to those gentlemen. Okay, there they are, and
Daniel Snyder's nephew, shout out to him as well. That's right,
it's been a great show. Thank you for watching. Take
Care of Yourselves. We will be back Friday, eleven am Eastern.
A remote episode that will get you fired up for
the fights this weekend. Don't miss it. Take care, be
be I don't know.

Speaker 1 (02:04:14):
Be good to each other.

Speaker 2 (02:04:15):
Yeah, be good to each other, right, be excellent to
each other. We are out of here.

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