UFC Fight Night: Vettori vs. Dolidze 2 Preview + UFC Star Debate | FULL EPISODE | Morning Kombat - MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Really really.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Look at this now, timpt.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
Jesus, Oh you.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Us doing will be up to.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
It's time to bank.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Oh yeah, it's Friday. You got a feeling inside your loins,
It's time to express that in a safe manner. Hey,
it's morning combat. We're back in your absolute facehole here
on March fourteenth, twenty and twenty five, only three days
away from when Irish people all around this country will
blackout in honor of themselves. So shout out to that. Hey,

(01:00):
we got a great show for you today, I and
Brian Campbell, that BBC with that double A energy and
that BD. If you will, I don't know if you will,
but I will.

Speaker 4 (01:08):
I have been.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
It's been fantastic. Hey the other guy, that guy DC's finest,
Luke Thomas, is back in the building. And Luke, I
think you would say we got a decent show for
the people today. I think we we.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
I think we have something interesting for the folks today.
So if you'll recall I know you do, BC, but
I'm saying, for the audience's sake, if you'll recall Monday,
Brian and I we asked you, guys, hey, why don't
you email the show A video of yourself an audio clip,
or just write us at Morning Coombat at gmail dot
com tell us what we may not be understanding about
the UFC star making machine and what we know. We

(01:41):
don't think it's what it once was, but we seem
to be missing the point to a lot of people,
so we asked, okay, what is the point BC. They
answered that call tremendously. We have good audio clips, video clips,
tons of written replies. Let me just say this. I
don't think we have time to get to all of
them because it was so freaking me but we selected
the best. If yours didn't get picked, it may just

(02:03):
be because of length, or we caught a different one
that had the same topics first. But thank you for
the overwhelming response. We really appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
Yeah, size normally matters, not when it comes nineteen paragraphs.
But I don't think we got any screenshots of any genitalia,
so this was a successful event.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
Right, We didn't get any screenshots of genitalia, but I
did see some well, some fan subs we can't use.
Let's put it that way.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
How about they were very bbl tastic to say the least,
clothes we're optional and that one hey, It's great to
be back here with you. So why don't you like
the show? Why don't you subscribe to what we're doing
here on Morning Combat? Make it a part of your
regular Monday and Friday routine. You can follow us on
those socials. How our socials, Jenny, pretty damn good? Right?

(02:51):
You also can subscribe to our YouTube channels, and that
not only includes Luke Thomas the BCX. How about that
main card minute with Luke no cita. In fact, we
have that producer, director and bong enthusiast with us today
Long Island. Luke, how the hell are you?

Speaker 5 (03:10):
I'm hyped, guys, Roman dealeds a Marvin Vittori two this weekend?
Can we get a better main event?

Speaker 4 (03:15):
I mean shit, is.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
This the shittiest card ever or just in recent shitty
UFC memory?

Speaker 5 (03:20):
I think it's the shittiest card in a twelve month span,
Like I'll go as far back as you know, last March.

Speaker 4 (03:28):
So yeah, it's pretty bad.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
I got a judgment on this.

Speaker 2 (03:31):
I Reggie opened the door already, I got to close it.

Speaker 4 (03:34):
You guys talk among bring them on, bring him on?

Speaker 1 (03:36):
Now. That doesn't mean that you're not gambling though, right.

Speaker 4 (03:39):
No, of course, I'm doing a watch along.

Speaker 5 (03:40):
I'll even go an hour before the main card because
they jumbled the card a little bit on me and
I have a bet on Sue Young you versus A. J.
Cunningham and they move that to the fight before the
featured prelimps. I'm gonna go an hour before the main
so we can squeeze that in and they don't do
the main card.

Speaker 1 (03:57):
All right, Well that is quite the commitment, you say,
Boyfriend of the year over there?

Speaker 2 (04:02):
Yeah, yeah, shout out to this cat here as well,
Reggie J. He's back. He's back, all right, so get
happy about that. How are you, Reggie? You're doing well?

Speaker 1 (04:10):
What's up? Ridge?

Speaker 2 (04:12):
He has less teeth like a lot of our listeners,
but he's very happy.

Speaker 1 (04:15):
Luke, I had to pull before Barbus died, maybe like
a year or two before he died. I had to
pull a bunch of his teeth. Not cheap, it turns out, not.

Speaker 2 (04:25):
Yo, No, nothing about this is cheap. But it's for
the love, Luke the game, Okay, at the end of it,
So shout out to the rege h Luke. Anything else
you want to tell the people about your life? Anymore
recent medical reports you want to.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
No No, No, No. All that is steadily improving, Thank
the Lord. I saw an amazing movie last night, and
I'm on this kick where like I know, I'm watching
like all of the foreign movies, but I just kind
of wanted to see him. I watched the one so
I remember last or however many weeks ago, I promoted
The Seed of the Sacred Fig, this Iranian movie I liked.
That one did not win the Oscar. The one that

(04:59):
won the Oscar was a Brazilian movie called I'm Still Here.
I saw that last night. It finally came out on streaming.
Holy shit, I can see why I won the Oscar.
PC it is. Oh, it's it's a special movie.

Speaker 4 (05:13):
Man.

Speaker 1 (05:13):
I can't believe how good those last two movies I've
seen were. If you get a chance to watch it,
do it. It's it's remarkable.

Speaker 2 (05:20):
That's awesome. That's awesome right there. Sorry, I was just
putting this on Reggie's head.

Speaker 1 (05:23):
It's I used that. I use that as like a stress,
like a Yeah, it's like a stress. Yeah, that's it.

Speaker 2 (05:29):
It makes you tingle in your dumb if you know
what I mean. You know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (05:33):
Yeah, all right, it's almost like there's a person giving
you affection, but it's just you.

Speaker 2 (05:37):
You know what I'm saying me, Yeah, which is you
know's been probably my longest standing relationship, to be fair though.
All right, Luke, Remember we did MK homework that time
and I watched a foreign violent movie and came back
to you, what was that called? Was that raid?

Speaker 1 (05:54):
It was either the Raid or the Night Comes for Us?
And both of them are exceedingly violent. Yes.

Speaker 2 (05:59):
We were having a raid discussion with raf Bugs yesterday
on the on the end he loves raid and raid
redemption or whatever, and yeah, yeah, and I was like,
I think I saw one of those, but I wasn't sure.

Speaker 1 (06:11):
You know, Rafe smart man, very smart man.

Speaker 2 (06:14):
Yeah. I mean if Coors Saua makes mad films, Luke,
somehow that I'm going to turn that into a one
week by Bare Naked Lady's joke. But I don't want
to put that song in everybody's.

Speaker 1 (06:24):
Head, right, I don't even know what you're referencing, aunts.

Speaker 2 (06:27):
Ben, Right, You nobody wants that in their life, right.

Speaker 6 (06:29):
You know?

Speaker 2 (06:30):
I used to call it my sister and just leave
voicemails that would go ants Ben in the hang up,
so that she would have it in her head for like,
you know, the next year.

Speaker 1 (06:39):
It's great.

Speaker 2 (06:40):
All right, Hey, we got a show for you and
it's coming right now. So uh oh, look real quick,
we've made a little bit of advancements on the merch,
do you tell and uh the average Joe Art shared
a couple or one of the designs yesterday. It's it
is common, guys, it's it's on the way. Okay, it's
in development. So I'm very excited about that. And you
know how much I love me some Joe Romero, you

(07:02):
know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (07:03):
Yes, And I know merchant. I mean I'm wearing the
old merch. I know that merch has been a you know,
it's one of these things that just takes time to do, right.
But I promised that BC and I are taking active
steps and we appreciate everyone's.

Speaker 2 (07:14):
Patience, Thank you very much. Patience is the key. Our
reminder also that it's time to start the show. So
here we go. Topic number one. There will be UFC
this weekend. The quality of that depends on whether your
mileage varies.

Speaker 1 (07:28):
Right.

Speaker 2 (07:28):
Hey, we got Fight Night Apex and again a rematch
that I don't know if we call for, but we
got it UFC Fight Night Middleweight main event Marvin Vittori
versus Roman Delidze part the Luke Thomas. Has been almost
two years for Vittori as he heads into this deleds
A main event, He's in part was off due to

(07:48):
major surgery. Was taking this much time off a good
idea smack in the middle of Vittori's athletic prime in
your opinion as we enter into this main event.

Speaker 1 (07:59):
Yeah, it's a great question. So, I mean, they thought
about two years ago, but he's been off. I'm mean
I have to look at the exact math. Maybe eighteen
nineteen months something like that, but quite some time, quite
some time BC and you know, normally in the middle
of an athletic prime. I would not recommend that. I
just I've not seen. I mean, obviously there can be
scenarios where someone has to do to injury or something
like that and it is not necessarily conclusively bad for them.

(08:23):
It can you know, they have to take the time off,
they come back, they look refreshed, they get a little
few extra tricks, it alls well, that ends well. But
in general, I would say if you're healthy, and again,
part of what he was up against here was he
was not you know, you would not want to necessarily
take that kind of time. But in his particular case, BC,
we have to see, obviously, could he have taken this

(08:44):
time off and it's just been a waste of time
and he's just going to come back exactly the same guy, Well,
then of course it would not have been worth it.
But this is the point I'm trying to make. He
is one of those cases where he kind of maxed
out where he was. He was still at a pretty
young age. He got two chances against Izzy. It failed,
not both of them for a title, but two chances
ultimately against Izzy. You know, he went up against I

(09:06):
believe who else did he fight, Whittaker and many of
the mainstays in that division, and he just kind of
couldn't get passed and there was a bit of a
technical stagnation that had happened. The point I'm trying to
make is BC, if he played this right, and again
a big part of this was just injury, but if
he played the overall experience right, where he used this

(09:28):
time to get his head right, to get his mind
game face on, so to speak, as well as adds
some technical wrinkles to what he was doing before. I
actually think it could be a pay excuse me, huge dividends.
We will have to see if he used this time effectively.

Speaker 2 (09:48):
Yeah, thirty one years old, Vittori has lost two of
his last three. You mentioned the big names he went
in against. The win came against the Leedsia. That's almost
two years to the day. It will actually be two
years and three days removed from when they met in
the opening bout of the UFC London card in twenty
twenty three. It went down as a unanimous decision over
three rounds, as Vittori took the scorecards thirty to twenty

(10:10):
seven and two scorecards of twenty nine to twenty eight. Now, Luke,
if I recall that fight, and I do, because that
was during a time when Roman Delize was riding a
win streak and I was wondering if that was going
to be the fight that would catapult him into contention.
It didn't happen. It was There were pockets of action.

(10:30):
It wasn't an awful fight, but I think the biggest
takeaway was Delieds's cardio was not ready for the higher
level of this division at that point. Now, even though
he suffered an immediate loss. After that fight, he has
rebounded with two straight wins, and this fight will be
a five round main event. Do you believe storyline wise,
in terms of the actual x's and o's, that the

(10:52):
pressures on Deledze here at thirty six to show us
that he's worked on that vulnerable area in his game.

Speaker 1 (11:00):
Definitely feel like if I had a conversation about this yesterday.
You know, if you're heading into a rematch, if you're
the one who lost the initial bout, the onus is
on you to make the adjustments. And of course the
challenge with that is not merely making the requisite successful
adjustments that gets you past the performance that your opponent
put in last time, but of course they're going to

(11:21):
get better too. It really is an unenviable task. It
is quite difficult. It can happen. We've seen very noteworthy
examples when obviously, for example, Shogun Hua fought Mitchita the
first time didn't go his way, now very controversially with
the scoring, but it did not go his way. However,
he left no doubt the second time and just steam
rolled him and got the job done. So you know,
I'm always gonna say, if you lost the first one,

(11:42):
the onus is on you, and something to sort of
consider in this return. He fought Anthony Smith, who I
think has admitted he's got like literally a retirement fight left,
and he took that one on short notice. It was
a weird fight. And then Kevin Holland, who probably shouldn't
be fighting at one eighty five. I'm not here to
diminish the fact that he's got two wins in the
UFC something valuable, but it's not like after the losses

(12:03):
tu Vatori and i Movov, he beat another, you know,
in prime high quality opponent. I don't think he did
that right. So this also remains a sort of approving
ground about what your limit is. And again I'm not
sure how e Vatori is. I think he's close to
thirty or thirty one, something like that. Thirty one, but
in the Leeds's case, he's thirty six. Now. Of course
at middleweight, that is hardly a death sentence, but certainly

(12:25):
the time, like the clock is ticking about trying to
make a worthy and capable, consistent run back into the
top five and potentially even further.

Speaker 2 (12:33):
Would you say, and I understand what you're saying about
the quality of the Leeds's recent wins and the timing
that if you look at his resume, what is his
greatest win? Is it Kevin Holland? Is it Jack Hermanson?
Or is it silently and privately wedding cheyennev listmus your
thoughts looping.

Speaker 1 (12:49):
Okay, So yesterday on my live chat, somebody asked me
how soon it would be before BC brings up the
fact that deleads A and Cheyenne Bliss Smiths have a relationship,
and I was like, probably pretty quickly. The answer is
fifteen minutes. Fifteen Dude, does this audience know you or.

Speaker 2 (13:13):
You know it's a significant factor in his development as
a fighter?

Speaker 1 (13:17):
Luke, I listen, here's the thing. It's every time you're like, oh, well,
this one is of suspect quality or this one is
of suspect quality, what people are saying is or what
people hear I should say, is that all that person
is saying that they're bad and they're you know, they
didn't do anything and it doesn't count for anything. It's
actually not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is in
terms of getting right where your ceiling is. It's inconclusive

(13:39):
because it just doesn't tell you if it is true. However,
what you usually can deduce from this BC is confidence boost.
Right if you lost two in a row, and in
the case of a Tory it was you know, competitive throughout,
and the case of Imovov it was competitive in general,
and then you get two wins back to back. Maybe
those two wins aren't the same quot in terms of

(14:00):
opponent that you had in the loss, but it's you know,
we don't get tune up fights very often in UFC,
and I'm not saying exactly that's what it is, but
it certainly is a confidence boost. It certainly is something
that makes you feel good. It means you got two
full paychecks back to back, you know what I mean. Like,
there's all kinds of ways that that actually can boost
your performance heading into a fight like this, when a
rematch with Vittori, all I'm pointing out is the quality

(14:23):
of the opponent. In an undersized Holland and a certainly
a Smith who you know, I think you would tell
you is just not really able to give anything close
to his best effort. We can't draw necessarily a ton
of information from that.

Speaker 2 (14:37):
I want to ask you something specifically about Vittori, and
I don't disagree with everything you just said there. It
feels like when Vittoria has stepped up to the highest
level rematch without Asania, the Whitaker fight, the Canoneer fight,
we've seen the limitations of him. Although I'll give him
credit for that twenty twenty one win over Paula Costa
and some of the sort of second rate middleweights he's defeated.
But the last time I remember, pre injury us really

(14:59):
having a discussion, considering he's still relatively young, right thirty
one years old, about Vittori's high end ceiling, we always
seem to settle on the same thing. He's battle tested
from the standpoint of being in many five round main events.
He's certainly durable as shit, and he's overall pretty damn
good fighter, But the lack of consistent finishing ability does

(15:24):
seem to ceiling whether he's able to get above these
elite names and avoid being essentially a big name gatekeeper
the rest of the way. What is your confidence level
almost two years away, that he's put in the work
to evolve and get a little bit more dangerous, because
it is tough to be a decision machine and a
division with dynamic strikers.

Speaker 1 (15:45):
Like this, Yeah, not just a decision machine a guy.
I don't mind if people have basic offense. I mean,
if you really think about it, Poeton, he certainly has
very sharply refined basics, and that makes it incredibly dangerous.
But you know, he's not doing the Shara bullet bop
bop thing on Armen Patrocy, you know what I mean.

(16:06):
He's not doing three sixty tornado kicks. He's doing pretty
conventional things. He just does them with razor sharp effectiveness.
So I don't mind that Marvin Fottori has a fundamental
game where there's not anything necessarily flashy about it. But
the problem is there's just not a whole lot super
dangerous about it. Either. It gets the job done, but

(16:28):
it's very labor intensive in order to make that happen.
And he's tough and he's big. And by the way,
one thing that really should be noted here is Delis
was landing on him in the first fight. Vittori's chin
is insane. Vittori has one of the better chins in
this division, and frankly, I'm gonna say one of the
better chins currently among active UFC fighters, a fantastic ability
to take a punch and just kind of keep going.

(16:49):
But there just hasn't been enough technical development. That's simply
the reality that he's up against. You know, he's big
and strong. You know he's got again a lot of
bases covered in terms of like what skills he has,
but how many of them are in excess of what
you know, the really good guys in this division have.
What makes any of those special? What is your favorite?

(17:09):
I mean serious question, what is your favorite Marvin Vatory fight?
I can find rounds where he performs well. I can
find exchanges where he performs well. He doesn't exactly have
a highlight reel because there's just not enough development that
really gives him an edge over his contemporaries to then
begin to move downhill on them. He can kind of
push the sled the whole time, you know what I mean.

(17:30):
It's a very, very labor and he can do it.
He's a fucking big, strong guy. He can do it.
But that's not clearly it's not enough to be in
the very elite of this division. The thing you're asking,
you see is the confidence level. All I can say
is he was in a rare position where he had
the time he had, the time he got, he kind
of zoomed to the front of the line, are pretty

(17:51):
close to it at age twenty seven, and then that's
where he hit the wall. But now he's had some
time to learn and rebuild and take some lessons and
make some changes. So time is on his side, and
for that reason, I think this final on Saturday is
actually a bit intriguing.

Speaker 2 (18:05):
Yeah, five of Vittori's last seven fights, by the way,
have gone the five round distance. Obviously we'll be back
in a five round out here in the main event.
So there's certain intangible qualities, Like we're saying that he's
very strong, and I need to see more variety. I
need to see him sitting down on shots and going
for the finish more. I'm looking back on his finish
history in the UFC. He submitted a fellow by the

(18:26):
name of Alberto Yuda in his UFC debut in twenty sixteen,
and he also has a first round submission of Carl
Roberson back in twenty twenty. But that is it. So look,
we have some sound here from Vittori on how he
has been spending his time hopefully crafting himself in the gym.
But let's hear from this Italian stallion.

Speaker 7 (18:45):
Obviously, welcome back, reg beIN what you've been up to.

Speaker 1 (18:49):
We missed you.

Speaker 6 (18:50):
You know, I've been in Miami, Big bouta latinas.

Speaker 1 (18:53):
That's what I've been up to, you know. All of
a sudden, All of a sudden, my my new favorite fighter.
No I'm teasing, he's not, but I was like.

Speaker 2 (19:04):
I was not expecting that at that moment. That was great,
all right, that was fantastic. I believe we have a
deeper conversation on a Torri's attempt to prove here in
this fight that he's truly truly worthy of entering back
into title contention.

Speaker 7 (19:18):
There's been a lot of changes in your division since
you last competed new champion with DDP, and you have
new contenders like Naz and Kyle Bralio. What's your assessment
of the division right now and where do you think
you fit in it?

Speaker 4 (19:30):
Yeah, he's deep man division.

Speaker 6 (19:32):
We raised the bar and the I mean they raised
the bar for now, but I'll come in soon. But yeah, yeah, yeah, No,
it's it's good. It was, it's been good. I think
it's stuff like that. There's a lot of Good Fighters,
and uh yeah, listen, it starts with Saturday. My my
comeback starts with Saturday, and I'm going to show him.

(19:54):
I'm I'm want to be a contender and and get
that title because.

Speaker 4 (19:58):
That's where my head is.

Speaker 2 (20:00):
And for the title.

Speaker 6 (20:01):
You know, when the bolls start rolling and I keep winning,
things happening very fast. I believe so, and especially also
when it's your moment to to make it happen, and
I believe it is now. So it all started with
Saturday and that's it.

Speaker 2 (20:18):
You know, he kind of looks in that outfit. Did
you ever see that original MTV True Life I Live
on the Jersey Shore episode that that I think was
the inspiration for them bringing a real world season there
or you know, developing that spin off. You know that
fella with the wife beater that would go out to
the clubs and he looked like a sad existence. No,
SA knows this. Y.

Speaker 5 (20:35):
Yes, he wore the rue hat and he would go
out with the chicks with the white pet.

Speaker 4 (20:39):
Yeah, I know exactly the episode you're talking about. Great,
thank you very.

Speaker 2 (20:41):
Much, thank you. I feel I feel noticed.

Speaker 1 (20:43):
I think Long Island Luke watches a lot of TV
I get the feeling we were talking.

Speaker 4 (20:48):
Like early two thousand's MTV. Yeah, I was watching a
lot of TV.

Speaker 2 (20:53):
I was on the broken leather couch and nothing.

Speaker 1 (20:56):
But V is Long Island. Luke, what year did you
graduate high school? Twenty ten?

Speaker 2 (21:02):
Okay, So would you say, Luke, it's it's not his fault.
He was born in the late nineties. Ultimately, probably it's.

Speaker 1 (21:08):
In his case it's all his fault, early nineties, early
early nineties.

Speaker 2 (21:13):
That is interesting, Luke. But I gotta be honest with
you right here. I don't have a lot of confidence
in victory in general. I want to see it. I
want to see him turn that corner. Here. We look
at the odds right now from our friends at DraftKings
minus one sixty two the favorite victory plus one thirty
six de leads a. This fight is interesting because of

(21:34):
sort of in some ways a crossroads nature of who's
coming and who's going. Who do you have more confidence in,
giving their age, recent injury history. You see that this
fight is not a pick them, but close enough in
terms of showing us on Saturday night that they are
headed toward contention. Again.

Speaker 1 (21:53):
I don't I don't understand the question who do.

Speaker 2 (21:55):
You have who's stock do you have more confidence in
this moment entering this fight?

Speaker 1 (22:01):
Well, okay, I'm trying to read your mind here a
little bit, which is why I was confused. It sounds to
me like I'm not saying you're suggesting this, but if
I may, you have more confidence in de leeds for
a very good reason, which is it's gonna almost I'm
gonna say almost always. It is routinely true that if
you are active, that just is gonna be better than

(22:23):
being inactive. And even if you can say BC to
the point we raised earlier about the confidence boosting properties
of you didn't have necessarily the two toughest opponents for
you in that moment, but just putting two back to
back wins together, like what this does for you. It
also just keeps you, like sharp in the gym active
doing those kinds of things, so then you can raise
your performance. It's much easier to ratchet it up against
a better opponent. And if you've had a couple of

(22:44):
ones that were a little bit you know, more of
a you know, an intro pace, so to speak. And
for that reason, I think it's not I don't know
what the odds are long on. Look, if you could
tell me if from our friends a.

Speaker 2 (22:54):
Draft, so Luke, I literally just read them to you.

Speaker 1 (22:56):
I didn't hear it. I'm sorry, I didn't hear it.

Speaker 2 (22:57):
All right, I could read it back to you. We're
looking at minus one six two Vittori plus one thirty
six lead it.

Speaker 1 (23:04):
Apologies, I didn't hear it. That's probably well, that's kind
of an interesting one. I'd be curious to hear what
longanan looks like. Betting pick is here. In other words,
I'm trying to say this PC. I'm I'm torn because
on the one hand, the consistency of just getting out
there getting it done, what Deleads has done, and he's
got well rounded offense. He can grapple with you, he

(23:25):
can strike with you to a degree as well.

Speaker 2 (23:27):
He's a bigger puncher, bigger puncher.

Speaker 1 (23:29):
Bigger puncher. I think that's also true. And uh, I
understand that. I think that's a totally reasonable thing. Here's
what I'm gonna say. What I'm hung up on is
that I do believe that, at least in terms of potential,
the Tory should or could have a higher ceiling. What
I don't know if he's going to actualize it. And

(23:50):
so that's where like, that's why I'm saying. You know,
if you go back and you watch their first fight.
We didn't really talk about this, but if you watch
their first fight, there's nothing interesting about it. It's a
fine fight, but it's whatever.

Speaker 2 (24:00):
There's a little bit back and forth with the punching there.

Speaker 1 (24:02):
I mean, but you know, not a technical thriller, is
what I would say.

Speaker 2 (24:05):
Just I love that term. Oh, I love that term. Yes, yesesday.

Speaker 1 (24:09):
Just a fine fight. It happened, It was whatever. But
I guess what I'm trying to say here is I
keep waiting, maybe stupidly, I keep waiting for Vittori to
finally turn that corner, and there's so many factors where
he actually does have the win that is back. I
want to see what happens on Saturday. So I'm actually
gonna lean Vittori and he won the first time. I'm

(24:29):
gonna lean Vittori. But I get having some faith in
Delidze as a bit of a wild card here.

Speaker 2 (24:34):
Long isn't look if Dolidze's cardio is not an issue
in this five round fight, that could be a big if.
We'll see if that's the case. Who do you like
in this one and why I.

Speaker 5 (24:44):
Think Regardless, I like Delidze. I'm not trusting Vittoria after
the layoff. Also, I was talking to Luke about this
pre show. If you go to MMA Decisions right now,
more than half of the media members scored the fight
for Deledze, including a couple of thirty twenty sevens in
favor of Deleading.

Speaker 2 (24:59):
Oh really really, yep, I had one.

Speaker 5 (25:02):
I remember, yeah, I exactly BC. I remember watching it
live and thinking to one delite as well. So given
that I think he won the first fight, you're giving
me him at dog odds here. I took him at
plus one thirty six like a week ago, so that
line really hasn't moved at all.

Speaker 4 (25:15):
But uh yeah, I'm riding with Deeds on this one.

Speaker 1 (25:18):
Fair enough. I don't think any of that sounds crazy
to me.

Speaker 2 (25:20):
Can't take him down, and it's more of a kickboxing match.
If de Leeds's got the fuel, I think you can
do it here. But it is interesting matchmaking, you know.
I don't love it as a main event. I don't
necessarily love the fight. I kind of like the personalities
the fighters themselves, but I got questions for both, so
this will be interesting. We do have more sound from Vitty.
Did he accept this fight thinking it was a different opponent.

Speaker 1 (25:42):
It's not sound, it's just a graphic. Yeah.

Speaker 6 (25:45):
Lol.

Speaker 1 (25:45):
This whole time I thought it was Roman copy love,
but it's a Roman deal.

Speaker 2 (25:53):
Oh oh my god.

Speaker 1 (25:54):
Wow, I'm just like very different opponents, very different opponents.

Speaker 2 (25:59):
Yeah. Time I thought I was fighting John Jones. Turns
out is John coppenhavior. You know, probably there's no difference, right,
same thing, All right, there we go. One more piece
of sound, though, is the leads A. Let's hear from
him in terms of what could be different this time
around for him looking to avenge that first defeat against.

Speaker 8 (26:16):
A tour were not lose, don't change nothing in me.
That doesn't define who I am. That's why it is
another fight and as always ready, this is mindset not
only for fight, this is my mindset for life. I
was very happy. I didn't expect that UFC will offer
me exactly this fight. But I'm glad because a lot
of people have questions after our last fight, and I

(26:39):
also think they didn't lost my previous fight with Marvin.
I want that fight, and I think this fight give
answers to all questions.

Speaker 3 (26:48):
What everybody have.

Speaker 8 (26:49):
No, I think I'm a little bit different fighter than
before than that fight. Back then I was fighting more
with anger, But now I am am more confident and
I more understand what I need to exactly do to
do to win fight. I think Marvin is very durable fighter.
He have a good heart going forward. Unfortunately that last

(27:13):
fight he didn't go forward with me. He was stepping back.
But I still think that he's a great fighter. Of course,
it's a little bit different preparation, but it's more understanding.

Speaker 1 (27:26):
You get the idea.

Speaker 2 (27:27):
Yeah, I do get the idea there. He's very happy
these days compared to fighting angry in the past. Maybe
it's two kids, happy situation at home. We did see
on Cheyenne's Instagram stories three years ago on New Year's
Eve that Roman was on the balcony just firing off
hand weapons. Looke. Just that must be Georgian culture right there.

Speaker 1 (27:47):
I don't know. I don't know. It's certainly an interesting one.
What I will say, b C is all an interesting
stat If you combine all of the Leeds's losses and
all of a Tori's losses, I believe this is correct.
They're all decisions. Neither has ever been stopped. So an
interesting possibility here at which I don't expect. I don't
expect this, But an interesting thing is because again Vittori's
got a really good chin and Delize is very offensive.

(28:09):
It makes it hard for this to get stopped. But
if somebody does get stopped, it would be it would
be quite novel.

Speaker 2 (28:14):
I mean, if Vittori gets stopped here, that's a that's
a you know, his career is going in the wrong
direction fast, so I would.

Speaker 1 (28:19):
Agree that would be that would be For Delzea to
get stopped would be bad. But again he's closer to
forty than he is thirty. For Vittoria to get stopped
would be I think quite quite destructive.

Speaker 2 (28:31):
Do we feel like? Look at rankings wise coming into
this fight, we currently have Vittori at number eight at middleweight,
roman Delize at number twelve. How far does the winner
go here? Top five, top five fight?

Speaker 1 (28:49):
I think bubble top five. I think okay. If Vittori wins,
even though the opponent is ranked twelve, especially if it's
really exciting, I think he's got a chance to break in.
But I think if delidse wins. It's know, he's probably
just gonna take something approximating, give or take what Vittri
currently occupies. So it really kind of depends.

Speaker 2 (29:08):
Are we over looking the momentum of Georgian UFC fighters
at the moment?

Speaker 1 (29:15):
I mean, they are quite good.

Speaker 2 (29:19):
Does it rub off? Does it just rub off on people? Luke?

Speaker 1 (29:23):
They are good, they are excellent, but they've also hit
roadblocks too. I thought gerham Kute Deladze was going to
be the next big thing and that didn't quite that
didn't quite work. So we'll see, we'll see there. I mean,
these these these these people are tough as shit. I
mean we do know that, right.

Speaker 2 (29:36):
Yeah, let's talk about this undercard. It may be a
short conversation. Look, I mean we we hit it on Monday.
This is would you say, irreparably bad? I mean, it's
just it's not even mid It's just like you just
don't need it, you.

Speaker 1 (29:50):
Know, not irreparable, not irreparable. There is one Okay, so
if someone was like, what is the other fight on here?
You absolutely have to watch there. There is one clear
choice for me on this one, and it's actually gonna
be on I believe. On the prelims. If I'm looking
at this correctly, I have to double check, but it's
a guy who initially lost on the Contender Series, came

(30:11):
back and won spectacularly. Twenty three year old kid out
of Argentina, Kevin va Jehos again, as my wife would say,
Kevin Va Jehos, but nevertheless, Kevin Vaejos out of Argentina.
He's taken on Siung Wu CHOI. This will be his
full on for Yehos. It'll be his full on UFC debut.

(30:32):
And if you haven't watched this kid, first of all,
when he fought Jayon Silva, he was twenty one, Silva
was twenty six. I believe I look this up earlier
this week. And then if you know, it's he was
still working on his development through the whole thing when
he came back on the Contender Series and fought this dude,
I think his name was Tigue, whatever it was. It
this ginger with the with the afro. I mean, Kevin

(30:55):
Villejos could not have looked better if he tried unbelievable
boxing combinations in the pocket, out of the pocket, smart
decision making. He looked like he was shot out of
a cannon. This should be a really, really, really fun fight.
Fourteen and one, the Argentine is BC. That is definitely
one of the young prospects on this roster you're gonna

(31:18):
want to pay attention to.

Speaker 2 (31:19):
Yeah, I've heard a lot of Seriously, I've heard a
lot of great things about him Long Island. Luke, You've
made your place in this industry on caring about these
type of fights. I'm creating betting parlays of why people
can combine to demand black sheear with a Priscilla catcawera
and make some money. What are you looking at on
this undercard besides absolute slot?

Speaker 5 (31:42):
Uh well, Luke just mentioned Kevin Vallejos. I do have
him in a parlay. I think he looks damn good
and you mentioned demon Blacks here. I mean, just parlay
those two together, add on a little Zalizi Eliza's er
Leski dos Santos.

Speaker 4 (31:54):
Yes, that's right there.

Speaker 2 (31:56):
Plus could be a banger, right.

Speaker 5 (31:58):
Yeah, I feel like the odds are a little close
on that one. I feel like ZDS way better fighter
than Chitty and Jokwani. Also in Jokuani been taken down
in all of his career losses. ZDS is definitely a striker,
but he has taken down five different opponents.

Speaker 4 (32:13):
I see him just mixing it up, taking him down.

Speaker 1 (32:16):
You got to you gotta read on Hernandez and Hollibah.

Speaker 5 (32:20):
I am riding with Hernandez for this reason and this
reason alone. He's lost four of his last six, but
three of those were at featherweight. This fight will be
at lightweight, where he's won three of his last four
and the only loss was to moy Kano.

Speaker 4 (32:32):
So like he's not losing the scrubs, he's losing.

Speaker 5 (32:34):
The top fifteen guys. Kurt Hallibah, I mean, who's he fighting?
Canaan Krushevsky? Yeah, I mean who the fuck is that?

Speaker 1 (32:41):
You know?

Speaker 4 (32:41):
So I'm I'm riding with.

Speaker 2 (32:44):
For all these guys are Yeah, look, demon Blackshair reminds
me of this guy in New Haven who used to
sit out front of the analyifies bar and quote Shakespeare
and everybody called him Black Spear, and he would always
be shirtless, would be like spouting off with like a
British accent, like these these Shakespeare lines, and it was

(33:06):
always very poetic, and I enjoyed it.

Speaker 1 (33:07):
What's he doing? Now?

Speaker 2 (33:09):
What'd you say?

Speaker 1 (33:10):
What's he doing.

Speaker 2 (33:11):
Now, I would hope the same thing, entertaining folks, spreading
the good word, the good joy of Shakespeare. And you
know it's is that that could be a racist story,
though I'm not sure.

Speaker 1 (33:23):
Uh. Favorite Shakespeare play of Brian Campbell.

Speaker 2 (33:30):
The Merchant of Venice.

Speaker 1 (33:32):
Hey, hey, there we go. All right. I was just
testing to see if you knew.

Speaker 2 (33:37):
Any But no, I did that one, I did Hamlet.
I didn't go too deep on Shakespeare, not surprisingly given
my public school system and upbringing.

Speaker 1 (33:47):
But I went to public school too, Tell me about it.

Speaker 2 (33:50):
Yeah, you probably went to a different kind of public
school though you were in dirt back Georgia, in different.

Speaker 1 (33:55):
What was so, dude? You can okay, So, like when
you have a child, you have to look this up.
There are two services. One is called Great Schools. One
it's called NICHE, and they rate schools by objective criteria
nationwide and you can plug in your public school to
see where it fits in there. Dude, I looked up
all the schools I went to. The best one was
a five out of ten. Like, no, I did not

(34:15):
go to good schools, absolutely not.

Speaker 2 (34:17):
Yeah, there you go, Luke. I wanted to talk to
you about something though. Yes, you know what March brings
big time basketball, right.

Speaker 1 (34:24):
Yes, it absolutely brings big time basketball.

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Speaker 2 (36:13):
Look, do you think when Canada becomes the fifty first
state that Shaquille Male Judy of CBS Sports will lose
that free healthcare?

Speaker 1 (36:25):
Yeah, but he'll still be going to terrible raves with
his laptop.

Speaker 8 (36:28):
Well.

Speaker 2 (36:29):
I appeared on his YouTube channel yesterday and he did
make mention about you know he would like if you
texted him back once in a while. Okay, you know,
I mean I do.

Speaker 1 (36:37):
Text him back once in a while, just not as
often as he texts me.

Speaker 2 (36:40):
All right, well, Luke, we got another topic for you
and his topic number two, and it's the call the
action that we put out on was it Monday's MK
episode in response to the UFC three thirteen pay per view,
not just Alex Pereira's upset or not upset, but loss
to UH top ranked and calive, but the whole idea

(37:02):
that in general, over the past year and a half,
as the TKO era, the Endeavor era increases with power
and momentum, is the UFC battling not only a star
power issue, but maybe a change in philosophy that is
spurring this if it is true. We put out the
call to you using our email address Morning Coombat at

(37:23):
gmail dot com, and as we mentioned off the top
of the show, we got an interesting mix of opinions, reviews,
hopefully some insults there, Luke, why don't you take this over?

Speaker 1 (37:34):
Yeah? Okay, So here's how this is gonna go, by
the way. One thing that we kind of well, kind
of one thing that we definitely messed up one. First
of all, let me just say one more time thank
everybody who responded. We cannot get to all of them.
It was simply too much in number. Also for next time, BC,
here's what we have to do. We didn't do it
this time. We got to put a word limit on
it and a video length limit on it because we

(37:56):
got a lot of video. We got a lot of videos,
which was awesome, but some of them are like ten minutes, Like,
we just don't have time to play a ten minute
video on the show has to be like two minutes
or less. We'll set that up for next time. But
here's how this is gonna go. I have read some
of these responses, but I haven't heard any of the
video responses. So what we're gonna do is we're just
gonna go through as many as we can, and then

(38:18):
if some of them challenge you, some of them challenge me,
some of them challenge both. But again, one more time,
we as BC indicated we've been wondering what the problem
is with the UFC Star machine such that there even
is one? What about the water down cars? Is there
something missing here? And I know a lot of fans
see the product differently, so we said, this is your
chance to tell us what we're missing, almost like a

(38:38):
more thoughtful dead wrong all the way through. But we'll
have some debate about it as well.

Speaker 2 (38:42):
I think we'll have a lot of male viewers here.

Speaker 1 (38:45):
And do we have any submissions from women? I don't
think we do. I think it's all dudes.

Speaker 2 (38:51):
Right, yeah, right, real sausage Fest.

Speaker 1 (38:54):
Yeah, mka, the sausage Fest. It's gonna be great. All right.
With that in mind, BC, let's get this party started
if we can. So. Our first response, and again we
may not watch the whole thing depending on the length,
but our first response comes to us from Clayton. It's
a video.

Speaker 3 (39:08):
What's up, Luke, and BC just wanted to hop on
you guys, ask for some responses on kind of the
star power and if there's something that is maybe different
based on kind of the younger demographics. So to give context,
I'm twenty eight years old, white guy, live in a
predominantly white area, and one of the biggest things that

(39:29):
I've seen when I came to the sport, I viewed
it as I was always into combat sports. I was
started coaching kickboxing and then just fell in love right like,
so watch almost all the cards stay very much in
tune with kind of what's going on. One of the
big things with the progression that I've seen at least
within my sphere, is that a lot of young people

(39:51):
don't watch the sport for the sake of the sport.
They watch the sport for the sake of personality. So
when you're thinking about the biggest kind of content that
people can watch in the era of personalities and streamers
and these big kind of very polarizing kind of people,

(40:15):
they watch for that, they don't watch for the sport
for more necessarily in combat sports, like I work out
a place where we look and we put on USC
events for the guys. We put them on a big
screen for the guys to come watch. So many people
showed up for Sean Strickland and DDP. They did not

(40:35):
care almost about any of the other fights. All they
wanted to see was Sean Strickland just because he was
a personality and he somehow speaks to their views in
some capacity which for me irreparable, but whatever. None of
them watched this last card with Michael Madon, Clive and
Polton zero grand total because they don't with the personalities

(41:01):
of the people. They want that. They don't want a
good product with good sport. They want the clips and
the outrageous stuff and the things that they think are funny,
and that's just my experience with them, right, the only
people Okay, yeah, BC, your reaction.

Speaker 2 (41:23):
So this does play into the ideal that people have
had that it has been a calculated shift on UFC's
part in terms of what audience they're going after. Obviously,
everybody wants to go after young male between eighteen and
thirty four, whatever your metric is, and they're aggressive in that.
I can't tell you how many of my kids, high
school friends or kids in my neighborhood here that are

(41:45):
in college that are suddenly out of nowhere UFC fanatics
and are watching this show and liking it and stuff.
So I think that everything from the aggressiveness of putting
politics to the forefront and having Trump and Kid Rock
and Tucker Carlson and all that, to the choice that
they're making in the specific celebrities and influencers that they're

(42:06):
not only you know, giving front row seats to which
you know happens in boxing too, and you're always gonna
want famous people there, but specifically the ones that are
almost becoming the journalists of this era. I agree with him,
they are aiming at a specific lifestyle, feel culture, and
I wasn't surprised when he said Sean Strickland is a
guy that people really wanted to see but didn't really

(42:28):
care about the rest of it. That's kind of always
in some way. That's why to me, big super fights
matter or what have you, because it's always something that
pulls people in. It doesn't address the quality issues to
their product, which I think is helping them not retain
fans over time, especially the recent run. But I love
that Clayton took the time to get you know, he's

(42:48):
not a he's a hardcore fan, you can tell, but
gave us that look into him. And also ginger Beard,
game strong Clayton, but him telling us as a disclaimer
that he's a white guy.

Speaker 1 (43:03):
Debate dude, yeah Clayton, Clayton, we know, we know, yeah yeah,
but in all seriousness, a thoughtful response. I guess the
one thing I would say to that is that sounds
like a Sean Strickland fandom thing less than it does
an overall fandom thing. In other words, like because he's
made his identity so much function of his political and

(43:26):
social worldview, it's it's almost like he's pulled like the
dynamic of fandom that he enjoys is separate from the
kind of broader fandom question that we're having. I think
there might be something to that, but nevertheless, a thoughtful
reply you see if you can, I want to there's
a bunch of these. I want to get through as
many as we can, so we think him all right,

(43:47):
Our next one, I don't know if it's Lionel or
as my wife would say, Lionel, but Lionel. Lionel has
a video response as well.

Speaker 2 (43:54):
Hello gentlemen, Lionel Rivera here.

Speaker 9 (43:56):
I pretty much agreed Luke with pretty much your entire
assessmentsampion by champion, but BC, I did have a little
bit of an issue with your framing of the argument, right,
this argument about the UFC having maybe a star problem,
of boring champion problem, whatever you want to call it.
I think too much blame was put onto the UFC.
And I'm not saying that the UFC delivers a perfect product.

(44:18):
The UFC can do tons of things to improve the products, right,
Fewer APEX cards, probably fewer events per year. I think
that there's a lot the UFC can do. However, some
agency needs to be reapplied to this cohort of champions.
We are not seeing the same urgency with especially this
current cohortive champions that we did see with previous champions

(44:38):
like Alexander Bolgkanowski and Israel at Assigna that did media
outside of their fight camp, fight week obligations to build
rapport with the fans, to put their personalities out there.

Speaker 4 (44:50):
We're not seeing that with this current cohortive champions.

Speaker 9 (44:53):
I think that that contributes to perhaps your interpretation of
the soldest product, because if a champion is only relying
on embeddeds and countdowns to build any report with the audience,
we can't really expect there to be any buzz or
any anticipation four or five six months out of a

(45:14):
big champion, a big championship fighter, even just a routine
title defense. We're not going to experience that excitement if
we don't even know them, and we can't just put
all of the agency on the UFC to make us
care about the champion. The champion has to want to
build a deeper report with the audience, and that starts
with their own channels.

Speaker 2 (45:35):
Your response, Yeah, this is a thoughtful response right there.
It makes me ask a counter question in light of
what I've been saying about I guess the laziness if
you want to call it that, or maybe it's just
a financial decision not to do the same efforts of
the past. And I even have to wake up and
realize that when I'm talking about the past and the
way UFC used to spend money to aggressively promote new

(45:56):
champions and get them out there, we were under a
different time when it comes to social media, streaming and
the roles at all this play. In light of what
Lionel said right there, I do wonder, Luke, does the
UFC look at it? Not just me? When I say
look at I mean their decision not to market and
pay for the money aggressively to do these type of

(46:18):
media tours or what have you. Is that because of
how much social media has changed the fact that so
many fighters do have their own systems now to get
out there, whether it be a YouTube channel, camera crews
following them, more aggressive and understanding use of social media.
Is this the UFC's way of saying, in a lot
of ways, times have changed, We'd love to save this money.

(46:41):
It is, to Lionel's point, to some degree, up to
these guys to get out there and market and promote themselves.
I will put some responsibility in their way, but how
much do you believe the changing of the social landscape
effects this?

Speaker 1 (46:55):
I actually think it's a much bigger conversation because, first
of all, I think his point as well taken. People
think this conversation is like, oh, what can the UFC
do better? And yes, obviously that's a big part of it.
But part of starmaking is, like, if not just part
of it, maybe principally about what the individual athlete does
and what kind of magnetism they have with the audience

(47:15):
that is aided by a capable promotion and that is
a very very important condition. But again, it all starts
with like is this person a magnetic personality? Is this
person interesting to audiences? And then how do you get
them in front of maximum audiences and blah blah blah. Right,
so it's a bit of a handshake deal with one
having more of a responsibility than the other. At the
same time, though, bec like this is something we haven't

(47:36):
really talked about, Like, yeah, you're right, Like fighters have
YouTube channels and they have podcasts. It's like, also everyone's
doing the same thing, even with the extra content. It's
actually what's interesting to me is the extra content part
of it is actually harder than ever, even though you
have more options than ever, because there's so much homogeneity

(47:57):
in terms of what everyone just does the whole way through.
And in fact, it's kind of interesting that one of
the we talked about Sean Strickland, whatever your reviews of
him one way or the other, like, he does have
an audience that is very, very magnetized to him, and
he does spout a lot of opinions. And I know
he had a podcast for a little while with Chris Curtis,
but that fell to the wayside. I'm pointing out he
doesn't do any of that stuff, and there yet still
kind of is maybe even a much bigger appeal a

(48:19):
relative to some other folks in the UFC for him.
So it's a it's a more complicated debate than than
just you know, whose responsibilities as the fighter or the
athlete in a world where what's available to the athlete
is Yes, there's a lot of it, but it's very
difficult to stand out when there's just this tidal wave
of existing content.

Speaker 2 (48:39):
I mean, I still feel like in the end, the
UFC is not making the effort to make the fighters
the stars in general. I mean, you can't. You have
to be able to concede that.

Speaker 1 (48:48):
Here, here's what I would say. This is the way
I would describe it. And this is something that hasn't
come up yet, but I kind of wanted to pitch
it to you as a little bit of here. If
you came up watching MMA at the time that we did,
and you watch them grow and they absorb Pride, and
they absorbed Strike Force, and they absorbed WEC, and they
just grew and grew and grew, and they went white
knuckle with Affliction, they went white knuckle with you know,

(49:11):
Elite XC, they went white knuckle with IFL, they went
you know, they just were I mean, they were absolutely
ferocious competitors, ferocious promoters. It is hard not to notice
that that doesn't happen today, in part because there's just
not the same kind of competition. They're not at the
same stage of development. There's just not as much of
a need quite honestly, and in terms of that kind

(49:33):
of adversarial approach to the industry. But it's also at
the same time, like if you watch them do this,
it is hard not to notice that just doesn't happen
anymore at the same time. BC, Here's where I come down.
This is the kind of lesson that I've learned through
all of this, and we don't will have many more
responses here. It's that I remember during the pandemic that

(49:53):
I my wife convinced me to buy one of those
monthly services where they send you a box of clothes
and you can keep what you like and then the
back what you don't, and then just you know, you
tell them what you like and then a stylist picks
it out and you get another box, and you get
another box, and you get another box. Right. And I
ultimately only did it for like two months because I
hated everything that they sent. But the point I'm trying
to make is you just it's just a surprise, like

(50:13):
whatever just arrives in the mail. You know, maybe you'll
like some of it, maybe you won't. You keep what
you do and you move on. It seems to me
like if you came of age, either during the pandemic
or slightly after, and all you know is a world.
Whether the UFC has you know, forty two forty three
events per year, they have a different relationship to the
product you see their relationship is. Hey, you just turn
on Saturday morning or morning, sorry, evening, or whatever the

(50:37):
time is, and maybe you like the fights, maybe you don't.
Maybe they're good, maybe they're not. You got the one
special one each month and the rest of them, you know,
just to surprise box that arrives in the mail. That's
not our experience, but it is theirs. And there do
appear to be a lot of people that seem to prefer,
not prefer, but certainly enjoy the way in which they interface,

(50:59):
even wasn't the way that we came up.

Speaker 2 (51:01):
I agree with that. I agree with that. I also
think that that to a lot of people, they couldn't
like like like what said in these two videos already,
like they're not worried about the business's financial future or
anything like that. Right, we look at it from more
of a ten that we're from a trend that we're
almost like critical gatekeepers of trying to make sure that
not only things are done ethically, but are done in

(51:23):
a sense that's you know, lifting up the sport and
growing in that regard. So I get that if this
is your Saturday entertainment routine, if you connect with the vibe,
then that's why there's so many people that sort of blindly,
you know, protect UFC and defend them on these type
of topics. I do get that, but that's the whole
point though. To them, it's the brand that they love,
and that's, you know, obviously what UFC would prefer so

(51:46):
many of us. Maybe it's maybe it's different because you know,
of my of our age group where like eighties kids
that came from pro wrestling, it is about personality and
storyline and truly making you care. But interesting conversations just
the same. Let's hear another dog. I gotta see someone's
face here.

Speaker 1 (52:03):
All right, very good, Well we have we have, we
have an audio message. Next, this comes to us from
Josh M.

Speaker 10 (52:10):
What's up, Fellas. I want to open up by quoting
the great George Costanzo when he said, without story, all
you have is masturbation. And I say that because I
agree with what BC said today on the show about
the UFC lacking storylines and developing stars and rivalries and
all that, and just you know, it's everything these days

(52:31):
just seems like about the bottom line, and there's this
and that and their new two V deal and just
making it super political. Anymore, and the way they treated
the media, and you know they're there, you know a
lot of the fighters. You know, I became a you know,
a really big fan of the sport, going all the
way back to the Chuck Liddel, Tito ortiz Ken Shamrock

(52:55):
rivalries back then in the mid two thousands, oh five,
oh six, whatever that was g Bjpenn and Matt Hughes.
I mean I bought eighty ninety percent of the pay
per views. I followed it, you know, listen to the
podcasts like you guys and Cole Maine event everything. Right now,
it's just like the product is like almost unrecognizable to

(53:16):
me anymore. I don't know any of these fighters. It's
everything's a paywall behind the paywall to watch it. It
is just it's a TKO and UFC has taken it
in a drastically worse direction for an old.

Speaker 4 (53:30):
School fan like me.

Speaker 10 (53:32):
Now I watch maybe fifteen to twenty percent of the
fights versus probably about ninety seven percent for eighteen plus years.

Speaker 1 (53:43):
So I agree with b Okay.

Speaker 2 (53:45):
So that's that's interesting right there, Luke, If you let
me jump in, she's definitely speaking to an extension of
this problem. Which is this this era of corporateness and
the whole you know, wal mortification of the UFC, and
that's that seems to be a TEA influence, and they're
already making those same changes in WWE, and that's part
of the fear, depending on which side of the line

(54:06):
you're on on this potential TKO boxing takeover, it's the
whole idea of just in my opinion, taking a lot
of that soul and personality out of it and being
more what we know they are about now, content filling
because ultimately that's who their masters are right now, the
broadcast deals they're trying to make and the government contracts
they're trying to create with major cities, putting the whole

(54:27):
TKO portfolio on the table. So I do kind of
completely agree with what he's saying right there. But something
kind of triggered my memory when he mentioned the era
that sort of sparked him, which seems to be the
tail end of that Randy Liddell Tito Shamrock era that
transitioned into the beginning of the GSP Anderson Silva and
sort of that first amazing modern pay per view killing

(54:49):
takeover era. And I wonder you know, we saw poets On.
If he had beaten Ankliev would have set the modern
record for most title defenses in a twelve month window
with four. Record you know is Tito Ortiz, who back
then was almost headlining consecutive pay per views on a
regular basis. Obviously they had less cards, they were stretched out,

(55:10):
but I think you could argue that when they had
less fighters back then, when they were more hungry and
fighting just for survival, it kind of in a way
had to be about the personalities, you know what I mean,
like pushing Shamrock into huge fights with his resume in
the WW crossover he had and all that, like Tito
Ortiz with the hunting to bad boy personality, Liddell. They

(55:31):
needed it back then, so they pushed it. These guys
fought off and they were in our face constantly. The
machine's too large for that nowadays. If you're really being
fair and honest, I.

Speaker 1 (55:42):
Think it's a fair comment. I want to make sure
we get more critical voices than ones agreeing with us
for the purpose of the exercise. So if I may,
I appreciate Josh Emma's response, and in yours as well. BC.
Let's hear though if we can from another a video message,
this time from our friend Steve en.

Speaker 11 (56:00):
Ball Island. Luke, my name is Steve Nullian. I thought
i'd send this in since you guys asked on your
last video talking about how we should send in videos
if we feel like you guys are missing anything in
the topic when it comes to creating new stars for
the UFC. I think one of the things that Luke

(56:21):
brought up that was actually outside of the subject of superstars,
but like later on in that same episode, was how
Mauricio Houfi and the Fighting Nerds have become like artists
in the sense of the word martial artists. They are
like bringing fire to the UFC. Every time they fight.

(56:44):
It's a must watch, right, And I think that's part
of the equation as to why the UFC isn't as
interested in marketing certain stars as much. They will market
certain fights, they will market certain values that they hold,
but I don't think they want to market people. I
think in boxing it's a lot easier to want to

(57:05):
create a superstar because there's so much competition. I'm pretty
sure Luke and Brian have talked about this before. There's
a lot of competition in boxing, like there's PBCWBC top rank,
there's Turkey, Like there's a lot of like independent moving
pieces always fighting for like smaller contract bids to keep
their boxers in their promotion, to give their boxers what

(57:28):
it is they want so that way they don't lose
out on that gate, that pay per view, whatever it is.
Whereas with the UFC, I think their deal with ESPN
has allowed them to kind of give less of an
effort toward the entire idea of creating superstars because they
get a set amount of money and because they underpay

(57:50):
their fighters, I think it's not as big of a
rush for them, like to create the next set of
superstars due to some of these like mitigating factors, Like
you have people like the fighting nerds who are doing
that marketing for them themselves. MMA fighters are a hungry breed.
I train at a gym, I have a few amateur fights.

(58:11):
I have guys who are climbing the rankings right now,
amateur pro whatever it is. And they are always hungry.
They are always working. They're always grinding, including like trying
to market themselves efficiently, trying to reach out to the
correct people, trying to ensure that they are going out
and getting the sort of support they need from like

(58:31):
sponsorships and whatnot, and maybe in the eyes of the UFC,
they don't see that as a priority because the fighters
are already putting in the legwork. A star is going
to break out at a start once. Like Alex Pahera
wanted to be a star. He just wants to fight.
He doesn't care about anything else really, Like the money
obviously is an important factor for him, but he wants

(58:52):
to fight, and so he created a stardom for himself.
He had this it fact right, And I think the UFC,
since they are kind of the only competition out there,
like pfla tour isn't really even competition. And that's just
the truth. You guys have talked about a lot or pflatur,

(59:15):
pfl whatever you want to call it, is trying to
constantly market themselves with the smart kids or announcers, the tournaments,
you know, a new way of looking at fighting, when
in reality, I don't think most people give a fuck
about looking at it as just like a new way
of fighting what people usually want.

Speaker 1 (59:33):
Okay, see any response there.

Speaker 2 (59:35):
Yeah, I think he's really touching deep on the whole
idea that it's a content farm nowadays. That's their angle.
I think it does play into the idea of they
still want the brand and data and the vibe that
they're selling to be the appeal, to be the star.
But it all plays into it. Luke Steve n by
the way, who said he trains a bit, looks like

(59:56):
he knows where the gym is. Looks like his dms
probably fall. We don't get many of those in this
MKA fandom.

Speaker 1 (01:00:06):
The thing you have to kind of like ask is
is not whether it's more content pharmish than it was before.
I mean just by like scope and size with Contender series,
Road to UFC, all the APEX stuff, I mean, all
the you know, the regular content calendar. You know, it's
just obviously is more I mean just like inarguably more
than it was even you know, five ten years ago,

(01:00:27):
with all of those additions. The question is is that
a good thing? That's the issue. The issue is not
isn't happening? The question is is that okay? Is that good?
And the answer might change now BC let's move this along.
Those are our video and audio responses. We had some
other ones. Some of these videos were insanely long, we
just couldn't get to them. Next time, we'll put some
parameters on this. Okay, the BC, this comes to us

(01:00:47):
from our friend k You you might have seen him
on Twitter at a time or two and he writes quote.
So I think BC is overstating the issue. UFC have
never been great at promoting stars unless they already had
the IT factor, like Connor Ronda Brock. They tried pushing
Page van Zen and Stage and failed because they weren't
at that level. Patty Stall has a chance, but his
hype azant matched his skills. They now only really know

(01:01:09):
how to promote someone that brings controversy, like Sean and Colby.
UFC is a concern about the stars that generate pay
per view by since they aren't reliant on them. Stars
would be a bonus but not a requirement. This is
why they can charge three hundred dollars for the cheapest
seats at Newark no matter the main event. Until the
model starts losing money, they have no incentive to try
and make more stars. I want you to react BC

(01:01:31):
to the initial point, which was they were never great
at promoting stars. The guys that they had just already
had the IT factor.

Speaker 2 (01:01:38):
That's an interesting point because I think there's been some
really good podcasts that have come out in response to
the TKO Boxing News, which is aligned with this conversation
from the whole idea of this triple monopoly that TKO
is trying to achieve right here. And I heard some
really good opinions, whether it be Zach Arnold or Kidnaate
on the MMA Draw podcast or I love John s

(01:01:59):
Nash's work of late, especially when he was on Kurt
em Hoff's Boxing Esquire podcast, and what came out of
that is interesting thought. The whole idea that maybe in
line with this opinion that the UFC has never necessarily
been great at building stars and that a lot of
their stars arrived in some ways fully formed. When you

(01:02:19):
consider the takeover of the Pride roster, they merging with WEC,
the buy out of Strike Force, and et cetera, et cetera.
I mean, I think you can push back on that
to some degree and look at the times that they
were struggling to survive and they certainly needed Liddell and
Ortiz and like I said earlier, like they needed those

(01:02:41):
guys to be active and be on their cards, and
they were so it was easy to push them as
your brand their personalities because it was. It seems a
little harsh to fully agree with the idea that they've
never been good at building stars or they have no
ability in that area. I don't agree on that pretty aggressively.

(01:03:01):
I feel like, to a large degree, like they've take chance.
They've taken chances on people and put money into people.
I remember they put a lot of money into Stepe.
He used to show up at ESPN a lot. So
it's happened before. You're not always going to get it
right as a promoter, right, it's the gamble you take
of which which horse are you going to back? But no,
I think in general they used to have a firm
grasp on how to do it, a method, a system,

(01:03:24):
And like I said, maybe that's changed over times with
the changes around us, but it's definitely changed in their
philosophy and how much money they're willing to spend on
doing it. They believe they've won the war already. So
because they've won the war already and they're making money
hand over fist, now they're just trying every possible way
to squeeze out every every coin out of every couch cushion.

(01:03:45):
That's that's the problem. That's that problem to me bleeds
out in every category that we're talking about.

Speaker 1 (01:03:52):
You see, I just want to get back to the
argument like, oh, they've never been good at promoting, Well
then why are they so successful? Like this this is
a non like why are there no stars coming out
of I mean Dakota Ditcheva a little bit? But like
why are there no stars coming out of PFL or
you know, even to an extent Bellatour, Like why why
is it just so happened all the stars come out
of UFC? And of course there's bigger economic reasons in play,

(01:04:15):
but I just want to point out something once again, BC,
you know this to be true, Like just take Connor
McGregor as like the APEX example, not the current version,
but the twenty sixteen version, right, Like, this is a
guy who, clearly, by his own magnetism, is the one
forcing the issue. Right, He's the guy that almost because
he was so popular, it almost forced UFC to do

(01:04:35):
that world tour and everything else that they mean they
he you can clearly tell that in many cases and
in particular his the dynamism of the individual athlete in
play is clearly the most important factor. I mean, I
just cannot overstate that, and in that sense I agree
with K. But it is also true that an effective

(01:04:57):
promoter knows how to use that and a bad, bad
promoter knows and does bury that. You cannot really believe
that bad promoters because like, if you have somebody who
is naturally a magnet and they work with a bad promoter,
is that going to maximize their personality? You're effectively saying
the promoter just doesn't do anything. This is obviously nonsensical.

(01:05:20):
It is clearly a handshake deal. In the end, while
recognizing same with Rond de Rousey BC Olympic you know,
metalist obviously bronze, but the Olympic medalist, she's coming out
to Jones yet bad reputation like this, this whole way,
You've never seen this kind of thing before. Clearly, what
she represented and who she was played the biggest factor
in her star development. But at the same time, the

(01:05:43):
way in which they match made her, the way in
which they were able to promote rivalries, yes, and to
an extent, the way her rivals stepped up to make
it even more so. Again, it's everyone working in concert,
but you're telling me any promoter could have done that,
because it just comes down to whether the fighter it
decides we be a magnet to the public. Obviously not.
It takes skilled promotion on top of that to make

(01:06:06):
all of that work. I think it's I think it's
I don't think it's fair to say that they've never
been good at it. They clearly have.

Speaker 2 (01:06:13):
Yeah, no, no, yeah, you're right, you're right. And speaking
of promoters, Luke, are you I don't know if excited
is the word, but Oscar de la Hoya Teasday, particularly
saucy clapback Thursday, that still has I don't believe it's
arrived yet, in which he's he teased that he's going
to bring up Dana White's wife beating issues in backstory
and dig up a lot of dirt. Does that interest

(01:06:34):
you at all for them to go down a dirty
rabbit hole with each other?

Speaker 1 (01:06:38):
No, in part because he's probably just gonna punt on
that and instead put on a thong and then gyrate
and cavort his genitals in front of the camera again.
And it's gonna be.

Speaker 2 (01:06:46):
Real awful pretty much pretty much.

Speaker 1 (01:06:50):
You see. I'm gonna skip one here from Caleb V.
But let's jump if we can around Luke to tyler Z.
Tyler tyler Z says, quote, what up, donks? I think
BC a strong point, and I think Luke's point of
a lack of American talent is a huge factor. If
you don't have an international star that transcends the American pride.
UFC fans have or don't speak English. Sadly, storytelling is

(01:07:11):
an issue. The only star they were really pushing and
bet hard On I think he means the American one
was O'Malley. The UFC never put out instant highlights. Excuse me.
UFCE never puts out instant highlights, and when he finished
Alija that was all over the internet. That's what I
for sure. But besides him, there's nobody with a star
personality or performance style to push. Peyton Talbot is a
character to advertise and he could bounce back, but right

(01:07:32):
now it's not looking good. And then he has nice
things to say about the show BC. I will say this,
the lack of English again, it's never a light switch
on or off deal. For example, Anderson Silva didn't speak
English through the vast majority of his run and it
didn't really seem to matter. Again, it took a long
time for him to become a star. It did delay it,

(01:07:53):
but in the end, yeah, but I'm saying in the
end he was still able to certainly overcome it. At
the same time, I believe, like Jose Aldo, never speaking
English didn't necessarily help him, as he was really nable,
I mean, except through the Connor thing, wasn't really able
to connect. But again with fad Or, Fador didn't speak English,
and at his prime it didn't necessarily matter. The What

(01:08:13):
I'm trying to make is a lack of English proficiency
can and often does play a role. It's just not
by itself always the limiting factor.

Speaker 2 (01:08:22):
I think that's fair to say. And I don't look
at the American thing as a curse or something they
did wrong. Sometimes that's the movement of the sport or
the evolution of the sport. I don't you know. I
don't damn them for putting Pereira in there with ankle Ive.
In fact, I had been criticizing them for over a
year for seemingly actively avoiding that. That just sometimes happens

(01:08:43):
when you get pockets of nations that are hot and
producing so many, so much talent, it'll definitely hurt if
these fighters have a style that the mainstream would think
is boring, mixed with maybe they don't speak English or
they don't have Dyna personalities. But that's always a bit
of a gamble too. Are they again spending the money

(01:09:05):
and taking the time to promote that. I think that's
a good argument. I had one other argument to ask you.
They tend to promote the storylines, meaning UFC ahead of
big pay per view fights. Definitely that they feel produce money.
That's why, you know, DC versus John is arguably the
greatest rivalry of all time because it was just such
a soap opera we had to keep watching, especially when

(01:09:26):
John would get in and out of trouble. That linked
with that, and obviously Connor versus a Beab got to
you know, death stare threat levels of just insanity and intensity,
and they certainly publicized Connor, you know, getting arrested throwing
the dolly and used that as fuel, maybe in the

(01:09:47):
same way as they're using this Bryce Mitchell thing as
sort of propaganda fuel. But on the flip side, you
can always argue that there's not as much money in
promoting good news stories. It's why you're local newscast, right,
you know you got to you got to wait twenty
three minutes of the half hour to hear something good.
It's always going to be the stuff that's gonna move
and make people click or make people stay and watch,

(01:10:08):
whether that's crazy weather coming or arrests or murders. I
have criticized them softly over the years from this standpoint,
they don't seem to really care or want to push
that stuff in aggressive ways in which you spend money
to do it. I felt like Francis had the best
story ever, and it was almost a footnote to him.
You know. The marketing for him was always he's MMA's

(01:10:31):
Mike Tyson, He's got the hard you know, he's the
MMA Deontay Wild. They're understandably so, but I never felt
like they pushed that as a great story, and I
don't feel like that's something that they are wired to
look at as maybe just from the standpoint of black
and white, it doesn't sell, but that goes a long
way in humanizing athletes and getting you to really care

(01:10:51):
and about them. Now, I know you can push back
and say, well what about this instance where they did
it or this instance I'm saying, largely in general, I
don't feel like that's something they folk.

Speaker 1 (01:11:01):
Okay, fair enough, let's go if we can here, I'm
gonna move to Gabe C Brian Campbell greeting stalks. I
was just listening to the UFC Star Problem segment and
have some thoughts. Okay, this guy started watching in twenty
fifteen twenty sixteen, when the UFC had some of their
best years. He writes, I agree that the UFC doesn't
put in as much effort as they used to, and
that there aren't as many big names as there used

(01:11:22):
to be. I hate that they still use the apex
and have zero much interest. He says. Inventory leads eight too. However,
he writes, this is still a sport. At the end
of the day, the UFC can't control who wins, and
I don't believe the quality of fights and fighters have declined.
I personally still enjoy watching fights just to see different
styles and techniques clash, even if it's between fighters I'm
not familiar with. MMA also moves so fast that stars

(01:11:44):
can literally come out of nowhere. Nobody would have predicted
Poeton success when he signed a few years ago. Nobody
expected a twenty year old Max Holloway who lost his
debut to go on and become a legend. I agree
the UFC has gotten lazy, but I believe there will
always be enough talented fighters to make the sport watching
and I don't see that changing. BC. What do you
make of his optimism about it's just gonna take care

(01:12:05):
of itself all over time.

Speaker 2 (01:12:07):
Well, I'll use that defense and what I just said
earlier about the whole idea of there's not enough American
charismatic champion. Sometimes that's a time and place thing and
it changes with it. I definitely won't push back and
say that now we're not seeing at the highest level
the most sophisticated, talented, well rounded you know ev all fighters.
We are that the sport grows over time. I mean,

(01:12:29):
only boxing in some weird ways has aged in like
a Benjamin Button way where you can make arguments that
guys from sixty seventy years ago would mop up today. No,
not an mma, I think though. That's not what we're
complaining about and saying it's not the quality of the
higher end guys. It's a their new style of what
they promote and how much effort they do that. But

(01:12:50):
also b. What's the effect of the Dana White Contender
series assembly line factory at bringing too many people in
that shouldn't be there or too early. And it's just
this rotating wheel of the bottom forty percent of the
roster is just so infinitely replaceable that you can't avoid
or argue with the idea of we're seeing the highest

(01:13:10):
most elite fighters ever. Also true on the highest level,
but the levels change quickly in this and that's our
problem when we tune in on a Saturday night and
we're like one and a half of these fights around
the level. The rest are sub level. And it's not
to say that MMA and boxing have historically had younger

(01:13:31):
fighters on the undercard or developing fighters. It's the it's
how you do it. It's the machine at work. It's understandable,
but there is a difference between who filled out the
prelimbs ten years ago and the level and quality and
experience of the fighters who are doing it today, and
that regard it has gone in the wrong direction.

Speaker 1 (01:13:52):
Yeah, I mean, here's the thing. Just think about it
this way, Like, if you've got the top, I'll say,
you know, twenty five fighters on the rosters, only fifteen
or rank. But let's just say top twenty five people
in each way class and obviously you know some are
going to be in PFL, some are going to be
somewhere else. But basically you've got more or less the
top twenty five be see. If you want to put
them in fights all the time, you can do that.
But if you want to grow the product, there's no

(01:14:13):
other way to grow it except from twenty six to
fifty or fifty one to seventy five or seventy six
to one hundred. If you want more of the product,
you can't grow it past the top ranked guys. Of course,
you can find new talent, and getting by the way
some of those twenty six to fifties and fifty one
to seventy fives is actually pretty critical in order for
the effective turnover to happen and for you know, the

(01:14:35):
next set of fighters to come up. But it's not
an all or nothing proposition. But the point I'm trying
to make is there are more fighters in the UFC
than there are players in the NBA, and the in
basketball is much more of a global sport, Like when
you're watching so many of seventy four versus eighty two
it's it's not that there's not a place for that
kind of a fight. It's just that we're talking about

(01:14:56):
the premium brand engaging in sub premium MMA. And there's
nothing wrong with sub premium MMA. But you know, the
NBA isn't pulling in people from your AAU teams or
rec leagues or you know, just guys who haven't been
playing very long. It's highly selective all the way through.
Even the worst NBA teams would smoke the very best

(01:15:17):
college teams. Like, there's not that line of separation with
with the UFC product by virtue of the way in
which they're trying to just grow the brand so expansively.

Speaker 2 (01:15:26):
I mean, you can't have they're putting crap fights on
pay per view cards. I'm not talking about the early
part of the pay per view on the pay portion
of the pay per view card. They're putting like random
heavyweight versus random heavyweight. That's the shit that has to stop.
You got to stand up against that kind of stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:15:43):
If I may, I think this is from roop h,
I could be saying that wrong. I don't know he
writes quote or she whoever quote building up superstars like
Connor with press tours and creative creating massive hype of
something a company would do when trying to get the
maximum val you from a sale. BC. The presence of
true superstars can be risky, but if you have a

(01:16:05):
sale in mind, it absolutely will inflate the price. The
Ferteinas gambled and it paid off massively. If they had
been playing the long game, they too would have started
to focus on maxing out the gates and the number
of events. Those ESPN deals sure seem to create a
constant stream of massive revenue, and it's all about predictable
profits for these guys. Also, without building true superstars, the

(01:16:25):
fighters don't have true leverage, which makes the costs aka
fighter pay more predictable. For example, if Francis and Ganu
had got the Connor treatment, pr wise, it would have
been very difficult to let him go. Now the whole
shit show has been swept under the rug pretty successfully,
and then he does gets some bits there in the end.
We appreciate the call b see, but this is the
weird part. It's not even I disagree with that, but

(01:16:45):
what they're trying to tell us is like, oh, well
that's just the way it is now and we're like, yeah, right,
that's the problem. I don't certain people, it just seems
want consistency and then some of us want punctuated, and
it's there's just a hard reconcile between them.

Speaker 2 (01:17:03):
Yeah, and you know, back to your original point on
the first topic of this that we talked about the
first submission, the video we watched about the idea of
the life cycle of MMA fans and how you know,
the fans that came in in the covid apex, you know,
era don't know any better or this is what they
like or this is what they expect. I do think

(01:17:23):
that aligns with the beginning of Rupe's point with the
sale in twenty sixteen, because if you ask anybody who's
been in the journalism game a while, or fans you
know that have been watching for more than ten years,
we're all gonna say twenty sixteen, or maybe in particular
that twenty fourteen to sixteen window, which did coincide perfectly
with Connor McGregor's rocket launch, was just such a oh

(01:17:45):
my god, the depth of cards, the excitement, the amount
of stars and personalities. Rondun Brock were still lingering, GSP
and Silva Diaz Brothers. I mean, it was a special time,
but Roupe might not be wrong that that the success
of that and how much that equaled the entertainment level
that came with that was so much more about that.

(01:18:05):
The ultimate end goal for successful swinging corporate raiders like
the Casino trained for Tita Brothers is to build up
big enough that you can sell it for some astronomical figure.
So for that era, I do have to be honest
and say that era is almost like the steroid numbers
era in baseball in the late nineties. It's like that
era is just different in terms of how you have

(01:18:28):
to look back at it and if you want to
go even further. Okay, well, what about that two thousand
and seven eight area where they were becoming such a
breakout pay per view brand from the tail end of
Ladell through Lesnar through eventually John Jones around the corner
and the other stars Gesp and Silva. Well, that time
they were hungry to become legitimized. That time was about

(01:18:50):
not only are we doing better numbers than most big
boxing pay per views outside of the really really big ones,
but we want to get to where we're on network TV.
Want to get to where we are a top story
every day on Sports Center. So they had motivation, just
like they had the same motivation around the time of
the first Ultimate Fighter, Griffin Bonner one, to just stay

(01:19:11):
alive financially and not go under. So I think you
do have to take light of what that era produced
and the reasoning behind it in the financial reality of it.
Right now is just a different game where they've already won.
So it's starting to get to people that have endured
it all, people that have seen it all like us,
We're waiting for something to happen, and it's probably gonna

(01:19:33):
have to be negative unless they sell off to somebody
else for that culture shift to change. And maybe Roop's right.
Maybe if Lorenzo and Frank were still here, they'd be
milking every possible dime out of it. I feel like
they'd have more pride because they seem to be more
pure fight guys. But it all matters in the end,
and maybe Roop's not wrong in that first point.

Speaker 1 (01:19:55):
Okay, we have a few more, but you know.

Speaker 2 (01:20:00):
BC, Yeah, hold on, I'm just fixing my thing. I
thought you might respond, Luke, but you know.

Speaker 1 (01:20:05):
No, oh, sorry about that. No, I mean, I want
to make sure that we spend maximum time airing the
viewpoints of our people who challenge us. You know what
I mean?

Speaker 2 (01:20:13):
Yeah, yeah, they do challenge us, there's no question. Yeah, yeah,
you know.

Speaker 1 (01:20:19):
They have a sweating is what they do.

Speaker 2 (01:20:21):
They do have a sweating. But luckily there is a
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We've all had experiences with mainstream deodorants, with body odor
with the desire to stay cool and clean. But I
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(01:21:05):
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I've been spraying this Mando spray as almost air freshener.

(01:21:28):
I love the smell of it so much in my
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with this.

Speaker 1 (01:21:34):
Yeah, no doub about it. Let me just say, you know,
I've used for my whole life, mainstream dealer, and you know,
sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. It's just really hard
to find consistency. Not with Mando though. Mando's just been consistent.
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(01:22:16):
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Speaker 2 (01:22:46):
I mean, look, we got cream, as you mentioned, we
got the Mando deodorant wipes. You're pretty much setting yourself
up as a man to always be smelling great. It's
qui quality stuff. It doesn't have that gross, you know,
mainstream feel. It's got a beautiful natural scent and I'm
loving the Mando experience. I want our fans to get
on board. Let's go.

Speaker 1 (01:23:06):
Let's go shop m A N d o dot com.
Please support our show and tell them we sent you
with the Code Combat Combat with a Game. Here's what
I'm going to do, BC. I'm looking at some of
these responses, and in the interest of time and getting
the right ones, let me bump down if we got
if you can see it here BC to number twelve,
if we can go there. This is one that kind
of challenges us here pretty directly. Okay, this comes to

(01:23:28):
us from Brandon Z. Brandon Z rights the following. I'm
just gonna jump to point number one. Number one. I
always feel like Luke and BC kind of missed the
point in these conversations. I don't even really disagree. I
just think UFC is so clearly a business, and the
real issue is the conflict between what BC and to
some extent, Luke want to cover versus what the reality
of the business is. The whole point of the Aldo

(01:23:50):
McGregor World Tour is to drive pay per view purchases,
which leads to an increased revenue, which leads to an
increased profit, which leads to increased valuation. TKO Group just
sees a different path to max out the valuation, and
that's way less fun for Luke and BC to cover.
I don't feel like any of that is particularly controversial.
Bec before we go to point number two. Your reaction there.

Speaker 2 (01:24:12):
You can always say that I mean I'm not. You know,
we don't lie about our intentions. We are longtime fans
of the sport, which is why we got into this profession.
So there's that part of you that has a pride
in ownership and a gatekeeping effect of wanting you know,
this sport to keep growing or evolving or all those
things mixed with you know, job control, wanting to feed

(01:24:36):
our families, wanting this business to to the thrive and
be what it is in the sport, just the relevancy
of the sport always growing. So it is a selfish
way of looking at it in some way, but I
also think it's looking out at the sport for the
better of it. I get ultimately his key point there,

(01:24:57):
and it's not that we've lost that point, the idea
that their aim financially, which used to be about pay
per views, is now about keeping multi year content you know,
plans in full. So if there's a reason why we
maybe aren't so aggressively fed the type of stuff that
is catnip to us as fight fans that would get
us fired up about fights, but that doesn't mean that

(01:25:19):
it's wrong from the standpoint of maximizing the entertainment experience.
And that doesn't mean and this is the real right
reason why it pisses me off and why why I
probably you know, annoy people talking about it too much
is because long term, you're turning away fans, ruining the experience,
and removing the average hardcore, middle of the road fan

(01:25:41):
from being able to even afford to do it so
or to follow it, or to go to events and
make vacations out of it as super fans do. That's
those are the areas where I'm like, I've seen this
happen before. I've never seen an industry greedier than boxing.
All right, I've seen this happen before, and they could
stop this, but the greed is ultimately where it's affecting things,

(01:26:05):
and that sucks. That sucks.

Speaker 1 (01:26:08):
Let me say this, there's a question of like not
whether he's right, but whether this is inevitable, like this
is the only way to do business, And it might
be because he's sort of saying, well, well, this is
just where we are, which technically true, but we're thinking
about I have seen the UFC have to be ferocious competitors,
but they don't have to be ferocious competitors anymore because
they have total control in the industry. I think the

(01:26:29):
point we're trying to communicate to the audience is this,
Like people ask, what's the benefit of monopoly? Okay, one
is that everything's under one umbrella. But the problem is
they have no incentive to try harder, Whereas if there
was a more robust competitive space, you would see what
we used to see, which is them go you know,
gas pedal to the floor, white knuckle with everyone, and
like the quality difference you get. I think in situations

(01:26:52):
like that is noteworthy. Back to point number two BC,
he says, quote, back in my corporate finance days, we
made a huge distinction between growth mindset and harvest the
profits mindset. UFC used to be about growth. Now it's
about harvesting the profits. If TKO followed BC's ideas, would
that maybe get better top line growth? Yeah? Probably better
long term health of the business almost certainly. But that's

(01:27:14):
not how the TKO folks think about it. And to
be clear, he says, he doesn't have inside info. He's
just you know, he's been in this business. It's about
quarterly goals, profit maximization to max value of the business
in the line here and now focus on converting the
UFC fan monoculture to the new boxing entity, to power slap,
to grappling, whatever leverage the UFC brand to squeeze more
money out of existing fans. Does that lead to smaller
and less valuable entity in five plus years, Yeah, probably,

(01:27:37):
But TKO folks will move on to bigger and better things.
UFC will be someone else's problem to deal with.

Speaker 2 (01:27:43):
Yeah, this is cage fighting. There was a feeling we
used to have, and I'm not saying that a new
generation isn't receiving that feeling in a different way and
thriving from it. I'm establishing here that there's an extreme
amount of teenager and twenty somethings these days that are
hardcore fans of this sport, and in reality, that's one

(01:28:03):
of the most valuable ways of knowing your health and
moving forward. Only I feel like it's all going to
be cyclical and short lived from the standpoint because it
got commercial when it was always the rebel. And I
know they still present that they're still defenders of free speech,
but you know, just whether you're you're on the side
of them politically or not, it's too much politics. It's

(01:28:25):
too much, you know. Cringey influencers. It's a lot of
things now that it wasn't before. It was about fighting before.

Speaker 1 (01:28:32):
Okay, let me jump down to Schieto. Yeah, let me
jump down to his last point if I maybe see
because this is the one that's more interesting, and this
is the one that I think is central to the
entire debate. This is the one I picked up on
as just really the difference now quote he writes, I
actually enjoyed the idea of weekly fight cards. I usually
don't watch the cards, but if I'm home, I'll catch
the main event. It's nice if I have nothing going on.

(01:28:53):
It can be a nice way to fill a few
hours in the background while I'm doing other stuff around
the house. I'm a weirdo who likes to knock out
a bunch of reading during downtime and then pause my
reading to watch the fights themselves. Then once the decision
is read, I go back to reading until the next fight.
I do that for most of the pay per views too,
until the last few fights are on the pay per view.
I've basically just adjusted the way I watched to deal
with the way the UFC content is presented. Now. I

(01:29:14):
don't really see it as a big issue for my
fandom BCE. This is really where we're at on this one,
and we just kind of have to admit people are
going to have difference of opinions and we have to
respect the audience here a little bit. Not that we
have to agree with them, but we have to put
ourselves in their shoes. They're just are people and appears
to be. I mean, it's hard to know. We don't
have any raw data on this, but it seems like
there's enough. We have to take it seriously that they

(01:29:37):
just experience the product differently than we ever did and
they're totally okay with it. And if they're okay with
it and the UFC is okay with it, two old
focks like us can bellyache about it, but they're never
going to change and that's just the way things are done. Now.
We kind of have to accept it to some degree.

Speaker 2 (01:29:55):
I think, yeah, I mean, but look at what it's
actually doing, because this is the exact same experience I
went through as a born again wrestling fan turned wrestling journalist,
meaning pro wrestling from the stretch of like twenty sixteen
to twenty twenty. It essentially, you know, I mean, and
that happens during certain eras of Vince McMahon's booking in WWE,

(01:30:18):
and like the UFC having such a grip and power
control over everything in the industry, so did Vince obviously
in WWE. But like, you know, getting to that point
where it's like it's cyclical, monotonous, not you know, the
quality of the craft isn't the dedication isn't there. It's
a business. It's blah blah blah. But where does that
lead to? It led me to get out of the business.

(01:30:39):
And maybe there's some that want me to hear in
MMA two, but it's ripping our heart out as fans,
Like that's the bottom line. Like we're talking a lot
about money, and we can always bring the job security
of journalism in there for us, and that's a big
part of why we care so much. But it's always,
at the end of the day, rooted in fandom. Maybe
it's great in fun as a fan right now just

(01:31:01):
to experience it for this new generation for the first time,
but we not only have experienced that in different generations.
We experienced it with crossover superstars and rivalries that we
still talk about today. That shit still matters when you
remove that you remove the soul of your product and

(01:31:25):
in place it's a corporate cash register. That's really the
root in heart of this issue. It's why I mean,
I'm not saying that there aren't fight fight, real fight
people running the UFC. Still, I'm not saying that, But
it's TKO's it's Endeavor now that's really running the show.
And these aren't fight people, which is fine. You look
credit to the UFC for getting to that level where

(01:31:46):
they can be in a situation like this, But we
rip PFL all the time because it's non fight people
making fight decisions all the time.

Speaker 4 (01:31:55):
Let's be fair.

Speaker 2 (01:31:56):
The people that are really making decisions in UFC right
now are financially trained people, not fight people. It's why
Dana White seems to have lost interest in the UFC,
It's why he's throwing himself a power slap in such
shameless ways, and why he seems to be set up
now for almost day pivot full time into boxing. Even
he the purest fight fan of us, all the guy

(01:32:19):
we used to align with and cheer for as he
was taking this ridiculous sport of fighting in a cage
with almost no rules and was cleaning it up and
bringing it out there to the messes. Well, it's been
in the masses for a while and the character, in
charm and integrity of it has been stripped away. Even

(01:32:39):
he's kind of done with this. What does that say
to you?

Speaker 5 (01:32:43):
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:32:46):
I don't want to believe with the point. I'm looking
at a bunch of these other ones, and it's a
lot of the same points. But there is a good
one here at the NBC from Corey P. It's the
very last one. I think, long on Luke Corey P
by the way from Valdosta, Georgia. So shouts to him, Wow, yeah,
not much else to do in Valdosta, but watch himma,
if I'm being honest, But neither hear nor there. All right,
here we go. He has a few points and he

(01:33:07):
really takes us to task here. Okay, one he kind
of agrees quote there used to be a lot more
big North American stars GSP, John Jones, Bjpenn blah blah
blah bah. He goes on. I won't keep going, but
you get the picture. Islam is a huge star overseas.
Shot Cut seems to have a huge following. Jong Wy
Lee is a huge star in China. So I think
some of what we're feeling is a lack of North
American stars, not overall stars. I definitely think this is true.

(01:33:30):
I don't see how you can really disagree with this.
This Peers. This appears to me like it's not just
you had American champions, when you had DJ and John
and or North American anyway and GSP, you know, you
had like these were like the pinnacle of the sport,
you know what I mean, not just champions at the time,
but like they stood the test of time for like
all champions, and they were all at the same time.
It's it's hard to replicate that. Okay, But here's where
he begins to disagree too. He writes, quote, I think

(01:33:52):
UFC isn't motivated to create stars like Connor like they
used to. Connor got big enough that he was able
to call the shots. I'm not saying I actually he
agree with us here. I agree with Dana and team here,
but I think they've learned their lesson and are comfortable
making huge profits by putting on content and making the
trains lead. The station is loose, like to say all
the time. Okay, Here's where he begins to take us
to task three. I feel like MMA media doesn't do

(01:34:15):
a lot to boost up up and coming talent anymore,
partly because their jobs have been outsourced to podcasters and
askus heers. But I used to see a lot of
stories about potential stars and now it's just he writes,
I have no beef with her, But he just writes,
now it's just Nina drama asking people weird questions. BC,
why don't in his mind, what would you say? Is
the answer about why MMA media doesn't cover up and

(01:34:36):
cooming fighters anymore. I have a very good answer for this,
but I'm curious to hear yours. This is this is
an easy one.

Speaker 2 (01:34:43):
Well, yeah, I mean the answer is the relation to
clicks aggregation and MMA media kind of you know, five seven, eight,
ten years ago becoming just an aggregation of trash talk
on social media. So it can feel that way because
when you work for websites where you're based upon you know, clicks,

(01:35:04):
that's that's the currency. So I mean, I think that's
part of it. The idea of the written word has
gone away, right. We thought when the athletic came into
combat sports and they were spouting you know, the return
to that, and I know there's still you know, the
Ring or on Crowned or whoever your favorite thing is
where Yes there's still smart things being written, but in
general it's it's not about that anymore.

Speaker 1 (01:35:25):
Yeah, I mean this is an easy one. The answer
is we've destroyed media generally with the way in which
we have destroyed advertising, and so we've destroyed the jobs.
There's just not as many people who are doing this
at a professional level. Yeah, there's like people doing it.
There's like a bunch of people who do it like
a semi pro level or a hobbyist level. But there's
not a bunch of pros doing it anymore. But more

(01:35:46):
to the point, you just have to understand something. If
you make content now online media content for audiences, you
have to take into consideration what will what will the
audience respond to and will they not because they're going
to sell ads against your content, And the more reviewed
it is, the more viewed it is, the more you
can pump ads into it and then get that money back.

(01:36:07):
Understand something. That's why you can just put a post
up about what Connor McGregor is tweeting and it will
massively outperform fuck even just any other UFC fire. Certainly
a UFC prospect wouldn't even come close. Let me just
be as clear as I can. You will go bankrupt
covering prospects in this sport. But based on the way

(01:36:28):
we now incentivize media, and I'm not happy about it,
but it's just the media warned everyone. If we don't
put limits on what Facebook and Craigslist and what these
kinds of folks are doing, it's going to decimate the business. Well,
welcome to the era of decimation. There is absolutely from
a financial standpoint. And when I say that, I don't
mean like getting rich. I mean paying your fucking bills.

(01:36:50):
There is zero incentive to cover prospects anymore. No one's
going to click on it. No one's gonna care. It's
a waste of your time. That's unfortunate because it doesn't
mean it's not an important It actually is, to his point,
a critical job. But I'm simply not going to shoulder
any blame whatsoever for the larger forces in play that
have decimated the ability of media to focus on what

(01:37:11):
is actually important versus how do we create content to
maximize revenue? And again I'm gonna say one more time,
when I say maximize revenue. I don't mean getting rich.
I mean just you know, subsisting on a basic level.
That's what I'm going to say there.

Speaker 2 (01:37:23):
Yeah, I mean, look, I mean that the company or
not the company. But Dana has been at war with
the media for like a long time, like full war,
like you don't matter, we don't need you. Let's bring
in the influencers. And I'm not saying it hasn't been
a smart financial decision for them or creating this culture
that is picking up so many young viewers, but all
of that plays a role. It's all affected in that.
I mean, look, James happens. We might just be the

(01:37:45):
old guys that relate to the accepting the change. But
I'm glad we at least created a forum to air
that out, hear the other side of it, and kind
of ask ourselves the hard questions in the mirror after
the show, Luke, so, I hope you have a deep
rooted conversation with yourself.

Speaker 1 (01:38:01):
I try, I try all right, Last, but not least,
he takes us to task again, and he says, I
mean this with all due respect, and I believe him, certainly,
I appreciate this respect. We want these responses. We don't
want the We don't want everyone to just agree with us.
We want what you got, So Corey, don't worry, he says,
I mean this with all due respect, and I've been
listening to the show since even before COVID. I think
you too, used to cover the fights more positively. Part

(01:38:21):
of your job is to create excitement about up and
coming talent or the fights more generally. But lately all
I hear is you guys say about undercard fights and
fighters is quote who gives a f about these fights?

Speaker 4 (01:38:32):
End quote?

Speaker 1 (01:38:33):
And he writes, aren't you supposed to? Isn't that your job?
I have parts of my job that don't excite me either,
but I still do them. And he does say he
loves the show. Born and Raised Valdosta, Georgia hashtag two
two nine BC. It gets to the center of the
question here. Part of your he writes, part of your
job is to create excitement about up and coming talent.
I think he means to cover the sport more broadly.
Isn't that your job? BC? Is that the job?

Speaker 2 (01:38:55):
It's part of the job. And I think maybe the
better criticism is is are we making all of our
takes and decisions about this promotion through the lens of
some of these things that have become unavoidable for us.
Topics of fighter pay, you know, the over pushing of
political narratives, and you know, and even the monopoly play,

(01:39:19):
you know, all of that, the TKO era, everything we're
talking about. Are we playing? Are we swimming in the
negative pool too much and always using that as the lead.
I'll look in the mirror and talk about that. That
might be the case. But as far as what our
job is, it's all encompassing, if you you know what
I'm saying. I mean, are we pure journalists, no part
in entertainment, part get the word out, but part hold

(01:39:39):
the task critical reviewers. So it all matters. It's all
part of the gig. Could we balance it better in
terms of how we deliver it? Certainly we can be
more thoughtful in that regard.

Speaker 1 (01:39:50):
Yeah, I mean it's a complicated answer. Actually, this one
to me is a little bit different, like what is
the job? Because on some level he's right, it is
the job to cover the fights, whether you like like
them all or not. If you're gonna do this like
some level of coverage about it in a way that
is not like, hey, guys, it's the best fight ever.
But you know, enthusiastically leaning in to educate the audience
because again, you're supposed to be the pro here. And

(01:40:12):
obviously I'm not saying that we you know, many times
our audience knows better than us, but you know it,
we have the dedicated ability to focus on these topics.
So I do think part of that is correct. But
I mean, here's the problem, Like the other part of
the job, Partly, the job is what you define it as.
You know, when you work for another outlet and they
tell you what they want you to do, they tell you, hey,

(01:40:34):
we need you to do. Like when I was at
MMA Fighting. I was an editor at times, but there
are also rules I had to fulfill and it was like, hey,
you got to watch Belatour on Friday. You gotta do
Belatoor predictions. I didn't necessarily love that, but it was
part of the job and fine, all on the all's well,
that ends well, you do have to do stuff like that.
But the reality about the current situation is it's again,
I'm gonna say one more time, it's hard not to
notice the differences. These differences make the product different. Granting

(01:40:58):
now that people interface with the product differently, and so
we have to understand those differences. But you know, like
to me, the fighters, not all of them, but many
of them have taken the joy out of getting to
know them, you know, when they go and they're spouting
pre meth Hitler stuff and you know, taking pictures with
the takes, and you know, and then this is just

(01:41:18):
the tip of the iceberg. It goes on down the list.
It's just not as like this is not very interesting
to me. It's or at a bare minimum, some of
the various decisions or turns that the company has made
aren't necessarily always agreeable. Do we have an obligation to
also tell the audience that there are limits to that
as well? I certainly recognize if you go want too
far in that direction, you'll just drive everyone away. And

(01:41:39):
what is the point of that? But what I'm trying
to make is it's a complicated tension between what are
the things that matter, what are the things that are newsworthy?
What is the job, even in some of its more
unpleasant details, versus also what is the truth of what
is happening? More broadly, what are these changes? Are all
of these changes good? And how do we talk about them.
We're in this complicated middle ground spot BC where I

(01:42:03):
don't have a great answer to all of these We're
trying to figure it out. It's not so simple all
the time. It's a new world we're wrestling with that
is not easy. But I just hope people can understand
from our perspective. We're not saying that we get that
balance right, far from it. But we are saying we're
asking you to notice we're in a different place now,

(01:42:24):
and that it's at least worth considering that this new
place and I know we drive it home, we can
accept that some of it is just different and that's
the way it's going to be. Are there bigger questions
to be asked about whether it's better or just fine
or worthy of ignoring? And I think that's a little
bit more difficult to do.

Speaker 2 (01:42:41):
Yeah, I think that's fair. I think that's it. I
think we've gone full circle. I appreciate the opinions and
the thoughts of everybody, especially the ones that take us
to task, because, like I said, you got to be flexible,
self accountable. You got to look in the mirror. Okay,
I got to look in the mirror and figure out
a better beard presentation. But that's just me. Let's get

(01:43:02):
into thank you very much for that. Let's get into
our segment here where we offer the opportunity of the
fans to uh, well wait, wait.

Speaker 1 (01:43:08):
We got to do one more thing. If you don't
if you recall.

Speaker 2 (01:43:11):
I might recall it. I may have already forgotten it.

Speaker 1 (01:43:13):
But well, remember that time, Remember that time where I said,
you know, you know what they sent to me in
the mail, this gigantic It was a ten pound delivery,
and I cause it, what is this? What could be
ten pounds? Well, I'll tell you what it was.

Speaker 4 (01:43:29):
BC.

Speaker 1 (01:43:30):
It was freaking gold Belly. It wears wings in there.
They even put a T shirt in there from Anchor
Bar because of course with gold Belly you can or
from some of the best places all over the country,
wing sauce. Directions on how to prepare it, all of
it taken care of perfectly, all ready to use BC.
I've used gold Belly and I've had awesome freaking experiences
doing it.

Speaker 2 (01:43:50):
That's the thing. The experience has been incredible. What matters
most though, the taste. Oh they got that too, right.
We're talking about iconic food that you get shipped to
your door. Chicago Deep Dish pizza from lou mal Naddy's,
New York's Best Famous Cheesecake from Juniors. That's just an example.
We can go barbecue if you're craving that, and get
Franklin's Barbecue from Texas right to your door. So when

(01:44:11):
we talk about the experience getting that package in the mail,
the quality of how it's packaged to keep your ingredients cool,
all the fictions I told you before, we got Guy
Fieri's trash can nachos and I was like, all right,
let's see what we got here. It was Super Bowl
Sunday and the real MVP were those damn not shows.
That's what I'm talking about. So it's dishes from one

(01:44:33):
of the kind restaurants, world famous chefs like Ana Garten,
Daniel Bulloud, Jose Andreas Goldbelly. Here has you covered? I mean,
Mikey lives in Florida right now, right you know he
loved to get some of that some of that Connecticut
New Haven pizza sent to his door. This is a
very very cool service that makes it easy to enjoy

(01:44:56):
the things you love. So if you're looking for that
perfect gift or want to impress your friends and family
with an epic meal. The next time you're hosting one
of those get togethers. You got to go to goldbelly
dot com right now and you'll get free shipping and
twenty percent off your first order by using our promo
code combat with a K. That's Goldbelly dot com code

(01:45:17):
combat with a K for free shipping, twenty percent off
your order. Luke, I'm team Goldbelly. In fact, let me
get a little more of that, if you know what
I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (01:45:26):
Yeah, no doubt about it. And by the way, they
were talking about Jose and Donasi's a DC guy. I want.
He's from Spain, but he's a DC guy. Tremendous food
and I just want to drive it home. That's the
whole great part of it. You're not just getting some
random takeout. It's not some random delivery from some of
the best places, delivered to you with quality and care.
We want you to go to goldbelly dot com and
use the code combat that's combat with a K, free

(01:45:47):
shipping as BC said, and twenty percent off your first order.
Tell them that LTNBC sent you and Kah great.

Speaker 2 (01:45:53):
Great save there, Glad to Glad to bring goldbelly to
the masses. They deserve that. But also it's time to
bring maybe your artwork, maybe the tight T shirt, pictures
of you and your significant other. We send out the
email address morning coombat at gmail dot com, and you
respond sometimes with genitalia picks. Mikey does not like that. Okay,
Mikey does not like that. But this one's called fans admissions.

Speaker 4 (01:46:19):
You've got mail fures.

Speaker 1 (01:46:23):
The dulcin tones of one.

Speaker 2 (01:46:25):
Gaff Yeah, Gaffney Jim, that's my guy. Hey, let's hear
from Ben B. This is the follow up video from
his last submission. Let's see what he's got going on.

Speaker 1 (01:46:36):
Calm down, Down's not the type for fear. Dude. Wow, Okay,
I believe that video was real. That's one of our

(01:46:57):
viewers that did that.

Speaker 2 (01:46:59):
I wonder if that's Ben B. I wonder if the
bee stands for balls right.

Speaker 1 (01:47:04):
First of all, I looked beautiful but also frightening. That
is incredible. Would you do that?

Speaker 2 (01:47:10):
Bec the four to twenty sticker on there. I'd love
to try something like that. See, I want to like
skydive and stuff, but you know, I got kids. I
guess I gotta wait.

Speaker 1 (01:47:18):
Would you do that? For like with it. You know,
you'd have an expert crew help you and get you ready,
and then twenty thousand dollars cash.

Speaker 2 (01:47:25):
Yeah, yeah, I don't. I don't fear like heights or
things in this category that much. I fear a lot
of other things in my life. I'm trying to get
over them. Look, but not this. Okay. I certainly haven't
feared gas station cuisine, but I probably should have. Our
second one is from j Moss. He says, hey, guys,
I should have sent this in so long ago, but

(01:47:46):
I'm lazy and anxious about being on a podcast. I
also promised BC I would send these when he was
door dashing, and we thought the worst. Anyway, I trecked
the northern circuit of Mount Kilimanjaro and brought my MK
hoodie to keep me warm. So did my girlfriend at
the time, Tracy, were married now, and so did her daughter, Rachel.

(01:48:07):
In fact, Rachel stole my first MK hoodie, so I
bought us a family set. Obviously, the teenager hates that
we watch, but that was a choice she made when
she took mine. There's a bonus pic. Oh, I'm sorry.
Obviously the teenager hates that we match matching sweatshirts. There's
a bonus pick of Tracy and I on the beach
in Cape Town, South Africa, if you want to use it.

(01:48:29):
With love from Kazakhstan.

Speaker 10 (01:48:32):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:48:33):
Wow, that's insane. Yeah, dude, all the way from East Africa,
then South Africa and then now I guess you know
Eurasia or Asia basically, but still that's maybe. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
that's incredible.

Speaker 3 (01:48:48):
Man.

Speaker 1 (01:48:48):
These are so many cool places in the world I
want to see I am. We got MK fans doing
it everywhere. It's amazing.

Speaker 2 (01:48:53):
No, we had, we had that couple of Mount Fuji
wearing MK. We've had We've had so many great moments
right here, kill him and jar This is incredible. Thank you, Jim,
and shout out to your now wife Tracy and her
daughter Rachel MK family. Baby, that's what we're talking about. Okay,
we have something now from a name that just it's you.
Love this Francisco Luke right just off the tongue, right Francisco,

(01:49:17):
good day Bong Island is what he says. I have
a fan sub of Luke shaking all these damn haters off.
Please enjoy. It's Francisco from Houston.

Speaker 1 (01:49:27):
I wish I wish that was that is that prime
Arnold right there?

Speaker 2 (01:49:33):
Yeah, yeah, that's prime Arnold Row.

Speaker 4 (01:49:35):
That's great.

Speaker 1 (01:49:35):
I know that bodybuilders now are bigger, but like, to me,
this is basically a perfect physique. This is basically what
perfection looks like.

Speaker 2 (01:49:43):
Yeah, either that or who do you think is the
Arnold of MMA at this exact moment, Luke at this moment,
whose body is the biggest wonderland?

Speaker 1 (01:49:52):
Probably Sarry yukin.

Speaker 2 (01:49:55):
God, Yeah, those high ribs he's got Luke and that Yeah,
that's that's This guy is a whole right there, right.
I mean, you know, they probably could add a few
strawways search flatways to this convo too, but maybe on
our Patreon later. Also from Heavy Riff magnet, Hey, they're
alpha donks. Here's a Luke Thomas Bingo card and I
did it with love to make sure your MK viewing

(01:50:16):
experiences are more fun. Keep on donkin in the free world.
That's at Heavy Heavy Riff Magnet on.

Speaker 1 (01:50:26):
Like I said, BC, I accused you earlier of the
audience knowing you, I would be remiss if I didn't
point out they also know me.

Speaker 2 (01:50:33):
Yeah yeah, wow, So we got a lot of shitting
stories on there. We got a monopoly. Let me finish now,
I'm not saying dot dot dot technique.

Speaker 1 (01:50:45):
Talk tuky. He got tuky at the bottom there.

Speaker 2 (01:50:48):
Cannibal Corps. What's the other logo.

Speaker 1 (01:50:50):
There, Dying fetus, Dying fetus?

Speaker 2 (01:50:52):
All right, a lot of shitting stories. Uh yeah, that
is that is incredible.

Speaker 1 (01:50:56):
Look if you look at the entire left column, it's
an entire shitting story column.

Speaker 4 (01:51:03):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:51:03):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:51:04):
Shout out to add Heffy heavy riff magnet on the ig. Finally,
Josh K has a trio of pictures for us. This
will be the first time we're seeing these. I painted
this for you, Luke. Luke responds, you're a bad faith
actor in the world of the arts. I mean, oh oh.

Speaker 1 (01:51:31):
This is the most beautiful thing in the world. Second
to my brown Growler Joseph.

Speaker 2 (01:51:40):
Second to my made with mammadic brown Growler. Wow. Uh
that is that is hilarious.

Speaker 1 (01:51:47):
That is that is amazing. That is The audience fucking
knows us, bro. They do.

Speaker 2 (01:51:53):
Mikey, who I think was in the chat today, Uh,
you know who's going to be mad at you? As
Alan w said on this week's BC X ray that
he's been trying to get a fans ub through Mikey's
filter for us.

Speaker 1 (01:52:03):
I know that Alan W and H by the way,
Danger Mouse, I know, is sending some stuff in. We
couldn't play everything today. We appreciate you contributing. I promise
we'll make time for you. I promise.

Speaker 2 (01:52:15):
Well, I think in particular, you know, Danger Mouse may
have been trying to get us fired with the last
submission that he's trying, So maybe Mikey's filter is necessary, right.

Speaker 1 (01:52:22):
Yeah, I think the filter is important. But I just
want to say we appreciate everyone who and by the
way again one more time, not just the fan subs
and Danger Mouse and LW, but for everyone who sent
questions in Morning Combat at Gmail, not questions, but challenges
Morning Combat at gmail dot com. I think if we
do this again, b seen, I would like to. We
got to put we gotta put we gotta put a
word limit, and we gotta put a time limit on
these videos. I think we do, We'll be we'll be cooking.

Speaker 2 (01:52:45):
We got to keep that circle tighter, Luke, which is
what everyone looks for. You know what I mean? That is, uh,
it is that's disgusting, all right? Yeah, Hey, hey, we
had a decent show for you. I hope you uh
you know, saw through the uh even if you didn't
like what we said, and saw our pure hearts at play.
All right, that's what it's about, you know, young hots

(01:53:06):
beat fast. Yeah right, that was on the Karate Kids soundtrack.
You got it. You had to be there, I guess, Luke.

Speaker 1 (01:53:11):
You know I was there?

Speaker 2 (01:53:13):
All right? Luke? Is there anything you want to say
to the people.

Speaker 1 (01:53:17):
Monday and studio we'll talk a lot about these this
middleweight main event. I'm not sure what else?

Speaker 4 (01:53:24):
Uh are you guys dressing up on Monday?

Speaker 8 (01:53:26):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (01:53:27):
First of all, I have to say something. The Irish
don't like it when you say Saint Patti's. What they
tell me is you can say Saint Patrick's or Patty's,
but you can't say Saint Patty's. Apparently that's a big
no no in Ireland. I didn't know they get bitter
about it. But the question is, let me just say,
as somebody who has worked in bars in his life,
this is this is every bartender's nine to eleven. They

(01:53:50):
have nine to eleven every year, and it's Saint Patrick's day.
It is It is fucking amateur hour. Every single time.
It's a lot of white people fist fighting again, thrown
out of bars. That's really what that is, Luke.

Speaker 2 (01:54:04):
Speaking of Building seven, I go, I still have a
lot of questions. I know this is inappropriate to speak
out loud, but I have a lot of questions. All right.

Speaker 1 (01:54:10):
You know they were probably already answered by capable architects
and engineers, so you should just look into what they
had to say about it.

Speaker 2 (01:54:17):
It's interesting, Long Island, Luke. I'm sure we can watch
the main card minutes content to preview the fights, maybe
even a live stream during de leedes A Vittori two
on Saturday.

Speaker 5 (01:54:26):
Yeah, I'm going an hour before the main card six
pm Eastern time, so we'll watch the last like eight
fights or something.

Speaker 4 (01:54:32):
Tune in. Gonna be a good time main card minute.

Speaker 1 (01:54:35):
Hey, Hey, how's your girlfriend?

Speaker 4 (01:54:37):
She's doing great, Luke.

Speaker 5 (01:54:38):
We spend six days of the week together, you know,
Saturdays for me, Saturday is my dad.

Speaker 1 (01:54:43):
Just sees it. I'm just sees it, Luke.

Speaker 2 (01:54:46):
Did you see Keith Thurman this week?

Speaker 4 (01:54:48):
By chance?

Speaker 1 (01:54:48):
Dude? One time gave Old Rock Jarvis the two times
Bob hit him with it, didn't he?

Speaker 2 (01:54:55):
Yeah, it was pretty vicious, and he was like a
little sloppy timing off early, but he was aggressive and
he h you know what his hand speed was back
so three years a.

Speaker 1 (01:55:03):
Foot speed was pretty good too. He's alwaysd pretty good
foot speed. But first round was whatever. Second round he
was tuning up Rock Jarvis and then putting them away
in the third.

Speaker 2 (01:55:11):
Good Rock Jarvis is not a world beater, but the
idea of Keith Thurman against Tim Zu or Errol Spence
or Damel Charlow, like there could be a couple of
fun fights on the way out here for him that
where he can make some money, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:55:26):
Also Fan Meo suing Ryan Garcia, yes, which is kind
of interesting. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:55:31):
And I would love to get paid for hosting that
press conference, so you know that'd be he'd be wonderful. Yeah. Yeah,
So hopefully they get to the bottom of that one.

Speaker 5 (01:55:41):
I wanted to also mention guys, I wrote it to
you in the chat, but Dr Nergose, who is on
the main card tomorrow night, did missweight by five pounds.

Speaker 4 (01:55:49):
He weighed in two ten and a half for a
light have you leave out?

Speaker 5 (01:55:53):
And also we're waiting on still like four or five
more fighters to weigh in, which is pretty late.

Speaker 1 (01:55:58):
Yeah, we're up against it. And did the main event
fully whan.

Speaker 4 (01:56:01):
Main events good Colemyane. We're still waiting on Chitty Bang.

Speaker 1 (01:56:05):
Did did vaejos wayn veheo.

Speaker 5 (01:56:08):
Yeah, he's good. His bowt is all good to go.
This guy weighing in right now, josiahs Musasa. It's his debut.
He's getting the old tent around him. So not looking
good for this car, but we'll see what happens.

Speaker 2 (01:56:22):
And Luke. I haven't watched the fight yet, but did
you guys hear about this top rank triple header. They
had a couple of mornings ago.

Speaker 1 (01:56:28):
In Japanese one.

Speaker 2 (01:56:30):
Yeah, we're ken Chiro that do that Flyway champion. I
guess rallied back in the twelfth round to score a
knockout win, and it's being called the fight of the year,
so I'm excited to take the time to check it out.

Speaker 1 (01:56:43):
Dan Rayfield saying it's only the sixteenth time in I
think boxing history someone who was down on the cards
rallied to stop the opponent in the twelfth That's crazy
something like that, So like like a rare historical event.
Whatever the actual number is.

Speaker 4 (01:56:57):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:56:57):
Yeah, Nick Ball defending his other way title this weekend
against TJ. Dohane on de Zone and also Burlonga's in
a coalmine on de Zone in Orlando and openly feuding
with match Room right now. He's fighting like a janitor.
It's really interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:57:13):
Yeah, he should be. That's about the appropriate level for him.

Speaker 2 (01:57:16):
I want to see him against Caleb plant you.

Speaker 1 (01:57:18):
Yes, I also want to or Jimi Munggia. I would
take either of those.

Speaker 2 (01:57:21):
Yeah, yeah, I would too. I hope if Mongia beats
in the rematch here, I'd like to see him against Caleb. Yeah,
that whole there's a couple of names there that can do.

Speaker 1 (01:57:30):
There's a bunch of good fights that could be made
with Caleb right now.

Speaker 2 (01:57:33):
Indeed, and damn could they just make bev all Benefitez
already and let me call it? That'd be the greatest
one on my orks. Yeah, that's Luke Thomas right there,
suns out, guns out with the tats, right.

Speaker 1 (01:57:44):
Luke, it's just a short sleeve shirt.

Speaker 2 (01:57:46):
Is it cherry blossom season yet? In DC?

Speaker 1 (01:57:48):
Ooh close? They're predicting. March twenty sixth was the last
one that I saw. I would I'm gonna go check
it out. That's when there's a lot of people down there,
and my recommendation is for anyone come to see them,
don't drive, take the metro.

Speaker 2 (01:58:02):
Thank you very much. Luke Thomas, always repping DC, always
protecting it right like like Ceam Punk Rep Chicago or
you know Larry Holmes reps Easton Pennsylvania. That's Luke and
d C. Those were our socials. You can follow us.
Thank you for watching h take care of yourselves too.
Okay for Long Island Luke Regular Luke and your boy BC.

(01:58:26):
We love you. Thank you for watching. Enjoy the fights
this weekend. For whatever reason you're watching them for, enjoy
the shit out of them because we are out of here.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}UFC Fight Night: Vettori vs. Dolidze 2 Preview + UFC Star Debate | FULL EPISODE | Morning Kombat